dy."

"Oh," explained Jim, in an off-hand manner, "our folk don't pay any
attention to the like of that. You've got to show them you mean
business. If this gentleman had come on, the next shot would have hit
him where it would hurt, but seeing he was peaceable minded, he was safe
as in a church."

"Is the baggage where he left it?"

"Certainly, Ma'am; do you wish it brought here?"

"Yes; I do."

"All right, Ma'am; I'll see to that. It's all a little mistake, sir," he
said amiably, as he turned to Stranleigh. "Accidents will happen in the
best regulated family, as the saying goes," and with a flourish of the
hat he departed.

Miss Armstrong rose as if to leave the verandah. As she did so
Stranleigh said in a tone of mild reproach:

"I confess I am puzzled."

"So am I," replied the girl, brightly. "I'm puzzled to know what I can
offer you in the way of books. Our stock is rather limited."

"I don't want to read, Miss Armstrong, but I do want to know why there
is such a prejudice here against a sheriff. In the land I came from a
sheriff is not only regarded with great respect, but even with
veneration. He rides about in a gilded coach, and wears magnificent
robes, decorated with gold lace. I believe that he develops ultimately
into a Lord Mayor, just as a grub, if one may call so glorious a
personage as a sheriff a grub, ultimately becomes a butterfly. We'd
never think of shooting a sheriff. Why, then, do you pot at sheriffs,
and hit innocent people, out here?"

The girl laughed.

"I saw the Lord Mayor of London once in his carriage, and behind it were
two most magnificent persons. Were they sheriffs?"

"Oh, dear no; they were merely flunkeys."

"_Our_ sheriffs are elected persons, drawn from the politician class,
and if you know America, you will understand what that means. Among the
various duties of a sheriff is that of seizing property and selling it,
if the owner of that property hasn't paid his debts."

"They act as bailiffs, then?"

"Very likely; I am not acquainted with legal procedure. But I must go,
Mr. Stranleigh, for whatever the position of a sheriff may be, mine is
that of assistant to my mother, who is just now preparing the dinner, a
meal that, further East, is called lunch. And now, what would you prefer
to read? The latest magazine or a pharmaceutical journal?"

"Thank you, Miss Armstrong; I prefer gazing at the scenery to either of
them."

"Then good-bye until dinner time," whereup