large but not irregular features, bronzed fair skin, hazel eyes, and
long brown moustache. He looked strong and was lithe of form, as if he
had not done much hard bodily work. There was no one else in the room
except a man who appeared to be sleeping at a table in the far corner
with his head pillowed on his arms.
As I completed this hasty scrutiny of the room and its inmates, the bar-
keeper gave me my squash, and I drank eagerly. The excitement had made
me thirsty, for I knew that the crisis must be at hand, but I
experienced no other sensation save that my heart was thumping and my
throat was dry. Yawning as a sign of indifference (I had resolved to be
as deliberate as the Sheriff) I put my hand in my pocket on the
revolver. I felt that I could draw it out at once.
I addressed the bar-keeper:
"Say, do you know the folk here in Osawotamie?"
After a pause he replied:
"Most on 'em, I guess."
Another pause and a second question:
"Do you know Tom Williams?"
The eyes looked at me with a faint light of surprise in them; they
looked away again, and came back with short, half suspicious, half
curious glances.
"Maybe you're a friend of his'n?"
"I don't know him, but I'd like to meet him."
"Would you, though?" Turning half round, the bar-keeper took down a
bottle and glass, and poured out some whisky, seemingly for his own
consumption. Then: "I guess he's not hard to meet, isn't Williams, ef
you and me mean the same man."
"I guess we do," I replied; "Tom Williams is the name."
"That's me," said the tall man who was leaning on the bar near me,
"that's my name."
"Are you the Williams that stopped Judge Shannon yesterday?"
"I don't know his name," came the careless reply, "but I stopped a man
in a buck-board."
Plucking out my revolver, and pointing it low down on his breast, I
said:
"I'm sent to arrest you; you must come with me to Kiota."
Without changing his easy posture, or a muscle of his face, he asked in
the same quiet voice:
"What does this mean, anyway? Who sent you to arrest me?"
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