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 Myron smoked on placidly, the reminiscence involving the man in Illinois unfinished, nobody enough interested in him to inquire of his adventure.

"We was just talkin' about Tom Laylander and them cattle," Mrs. Cowgill told Louise. "Did you hear Cal Withers was down there at the stock yards with the sheriff, tryin' to make him give 'em up?"

"No; I just came a minute ago," Louise said. "What did the sheriff do about it?"

"I've been tryin' to make these muck-heads tell me," Mrs. Cowgill said impatiently.

"He didn't do nothin'," said Pap, willing and eager to talk to Louise. "The cow jerry pulled out a bill of sale he said Withers give him for the cattle. Withers said he made him write it with a gun throwed down on him. The cow jerry tied him to a wagon wheel, Withers said, but somebody come along and turned him loose in time for him to throw the switch and head that feller in. It's a hu-hu-hell of a note if a feller can take a man's property away from him that way and never be touched."

"You say the sheriff wouldn't do anything?" Louise asked, glad for the shadow that concealed, in part at least, her trembling eagerness.

"Said it wasn't his kind of a case; said Withers he'd have to bring a lawsuit and take it into court."

"I wonder why he brought the cattle here to town?" said Louise, feeling very small and foolish for the part she had taken in assisting Withers to come there and