Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/238

 're gone now, anyhow. You might 'a'—oh, hell! what's the use! Hold up your hand and be sworn."

Tom thought it was just as well, perhaps better, for him to look after the cattle until they should pass out of the law's hands into Cal Withers's, when he would be free to act in the matter after his own way. He lifted his hand and was made a deputy sheriff in few words.

"When Withers—or whoever buys 'em, and it'll be him—comes down there with a bill of sale signed by me—here, this is my signature, take one of these along so you can identify it—you deliver the cattle to him, and then you step out. Your commission expires that minute, your official duty will be over. Come up here and get your pay."

Tom was not as keenly conscious of the ridiculous, ironical humor of the situation as the sheriff. While he recognized his unusual position as custodian of his own property waiting sheriff's sale, he was utterly blind to the opportunities which a less scrupulous, and perhaps wiser man, might have jumped to profit by. He did not even suspect that the sheriff hoped he might wake up to a realization of his own interest in thematter at last, and head the cattle back across the line.

They were his cows; his interest lay in seeing them put on as much meat as possible in the shortest time. Yet perhaps he was not quite as simple as the sheriff thought him. He grinned a little as he rode out of town, thinking that it was a kind of a joke on him sure enough.