Black Jack, page 49 by Max Brand
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he sheriff kindly. And he waited for a response with the gleaming eye of a vain man. There was not long to wait.
"You've really heard of me?" said Terry, immensely pleased. "By the Lord, I've heard of you, sheriff! But, of course, everybody has."
"I dunno, son," said the sheriff benevolently. "But I been drifting around a tolerable long time, I guess."
"Why," said Terry, with a sort of outburst, "I've simply eaten up everything I could gather. I've even read about you in magazines!"
"Well, now you don't say," protested the sheriff. "In magazines?"
And his eye quested through the group, hoping for other listeners who might learn how broadly the fame of their sheriff was spread.
"That Canning fellow who travelled out West and ran into you and was along while you were hunting down the Garrison boys. I read his article."
The sheriff scratched his chin. "I disremember him. Canning? Canning? Come to think of it, I do remember him. Kind of a small man with washed- out eyes. Always with a notebook on his knee. I got sick of answering all that gent's questions, I recollect. Yep, he was along when I took the Garrison boys, but that little party didn't amount to much."
"He thought it did," said Terry fervently. "Said it was the bravest, coolest-headed, cunningest piece of work he'd ever seen done. Perhaps you'll tell me some of the other things--the things you count big?"
"Oh, I ain't done nothing much, come to think of it. All pretty simple, they looked to me, when I was doing them. Besides, I ain't much of a hand at talk!"
"Ah," said Terry, "you'd talk well enough to suit me, sheriff!"
The sheriff had found a listener after his own heart.
"They ain't nothing but a campfire that gives a good light to see a story by--the kind of stories I got to tell," he declared. "Some of these days I'll take you along with me on a trail, son, if you'd like--and most like I'll talk your arm off at night beside the fire. Like to come?"
"Like to?" cri