"Where's Blackman?" said Dan Anderson, again addressing me. "We have
got to have a judge, or we can't have any trial. Come on and let's
hunt him up. Curly, don't you run away, mind. You trust to me, and
I'll get you clear, and get you married, both."

"All right," said Curly again, "I'll just sornter down to the Lone
Star, and when you-all want me I'll be in there, either takin' a drink
or playin' a few kyards."

"Let's get Blackman now," said Curly's lawyer. Blackman was the duly
constituted Justice of the Peace in and for Heart's Desire. Nobody
knew precisely when or how he had been elected, and perhaps indeed he
never was elected at all. There must be a beginning for all things.
The one thing certain as to Blackman was that he had once been a
Justice of the Peace back in Kansas, which fact he had not been slow to
announce upon his arrival in Heart's Desire. Perhaps from this arose
the local custom of calling him Judge, and perhaps from his wearing the
latter title arose the supposition that he really was a judge. The
records are quite silent as to the origin of his tenure of office. The
office itself, as has been intimated, had hitherto been one purely
without care. At every little shooting scrape or other playfulness of
the male population Blackman, Justice of the Peace, became inflated
with importance and looked monstrous grave. But nothing ever came of
these little alarms, so that gradually the inflations grew less and
less extensive. They might perhaps have ceased altogether had it not
been for this malignant zeal of Dan Anderson, formerly of Princeton,
and now come, hit or miss, to grow up with the country.

Blackman was ever ready enough for a lawsuit, forsooth pined for one.
Yet what could he do? He could not go forth and with his own hands
arrest chance persons and hale them before his own court for trial.
The sheriff, when he was in town, simply laughed at him, and told his
deputies not to mix up with anything except circuit-court matters,
murders, and more especially horse stealings. Constable there was
none; and policeman--it is to wonder just a trifle what would have
happened to any such thing as a policeman or town marshal in the valley
of Heart's Desire! In short, there was neither judicial nor executive
arm of the law in action. One may, therefore, realize the hindrances
which Dan Anderson met in getting up his lawsuit. Yet he went forward
in the attempt patiently, driven simply by