me. As my aunt used to say (Miss Sue of
Missouri) 'I got a duty--do it, I must.'" He thrust his hairy hand
into his bosom and drew forth the fateful paper.

Lahoma laughed. "Read it, Mizzoo, read it aloud--read all of it!" she
cried gleefully.

Wilfred looked at her, bewildered. The crowd stared also, knowing her
love for Brick, therefore dazed at the sound of mirthful music. Brick
turned his head at last; he looked, also, not reproachfully but with a
question in his hard stern eyes.

Mizzoo turned red. "Well, yes, I'll read it," he said, defiantly.
"Sure! I guess as sheriff of Greer County I'll make shift to get
through with it alive."

He began to read, slowly, doggedly; Brick, without movement save for
that heaving of his bosom, facing him with a mingling on his face of
supreme defiance for the reader and superstitious awe for the legal
instrument.

"That's all," Mizzoo at last announced. "You'll have to come with me,
Willock."

"Hold on!" came voices from the crowd. During the reading, they had
been watching Lahoma, and her expression promised more than fruitless
laughter. "Hold on, Mizzoo, Lahoma's got something up her sleeve!"

Lahoma spoke clearly, that her voice might carry to the confines of the
crowd: "Mizzoo, I think you read in that warrant, 'county of Greer,
state of Texas'? Didn't you?"

"That's what I done. Here's the words."

"But, you see," returned Lahoma, "that warrant's no good!"

Mizzoo stared at her a moment, then exclaimed violently, "By--"
Propriety forbade the completion of his phrase.

The crowd instantly caught her meaning; a shout rose, shrill,
tumultuous, broken with laughter. She had reminded them of the subject
which a short time ago had engaged all minds.

"It's no good," cried Lahoma triumphantly. She took it from Mizzoo's
lax fingers and deliberately tore it from top to bottom.

"I guess I'm a-getting old, sure enough," said Bill. "This is beyond
me."

Wilfred looked at Lahoma questioningly. Brick, stupefied by violence
done that sacred instrument of civilization, stood rooted to the spot.

Mizzoo was grinning now. "You see," he explained, "word come today
that the Supreme Court has at last turned in its decision. Prairie Dog
Fork is now Red River, and 'Red River' is only the North Fork of Red
River--and that means that Greer County don't belong to Texas, and
never did belong to her, but is a part of Oklahoma."

"And you'll never have an Oklahoma w