fault," he commented lucidly the while. "I don't visit
you very often; but when I do I've got the dough to make it square, and
this town's my sausage, skin, curl, and all. D'ye understand?" and from
Manning, the greybearded storekeeper, to Rank Judge, the one-legged
saddler, there was no one to say him nay, none to contest his right of
authority.

By no means without an officer of the law was Coyote Centre. Under
ordinary conditions its majesty was ably, even aggressively, upheld by
its representative, Marshal Jim Burton. Likewise there was no lack of
pilgrims, who by devious and circuitous routes sought his residence on
this occasion, with tales of distress and petitions for succour; but one
and all departed with their mission unfulfilled. The doughty James was
not to be found. Urgent business of indefinite duration, at an even more
indefinite destination, had called him hence. No one regretted the
mischance so much as stalwart Mrs. Burton, who imparted the information,
no one deplored the lost opportunity for distinction so much as she; but
nevertheless the fact remained. For the time being, Coyote Centre was
thrown upon its own resources, was left to work out its own salvation as
best it might.

Thus it came about that for a long, long dragging day, and the beginning
of a second, the gunpowder had intermittently burned, and that more than
intermittently, all but continuously, the red liquor had flowed; to the
alternate aggrandisement of Red Jenkins and his straw-haired Norwegian
rival across the street--Gus Ericson. Unsophisticated ones there were
who fancied that ere this it would all end, that Mr. Sweeney's capacity
for absorption had a limit. Four separate gentlemen, with the laudable
intention of hastening that much to be desired condition, had sacrificed
themselves for the common weal; but to the eternal disgrace of the town,
all of them were now down and out, and in various retired spots, where
they had been deposited by their sympathising friends, were snoring in
peaceful oblivion. Even Len Barker, game disciple of the great master,
had reached his limit and, no longer formidable, had, without form of
law, been deposited for safekeeping, and with a sigh of relief, in the
corporate Bastile; but Mr. Sweeney himself, Mr. Sweeney of the hawk eye
and the royal tread, despite a lack of sleep and of solid sustenance,
was, to all visible indications, as fresh and aggressive as at the
beginning.

Now for the second