fter all he had no uniform; for these
lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance
committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the
regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my
boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku-Klux
Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were
rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was theirs. But
whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or a conspirator against
the law, or a lunatic entirely outside the law, I agree with the former
conjectures upon one point. I am perfectly certain he had something else
in his pocket besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under
certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, and shot me
dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded trams. And that is the
last touch to the complexity; for though in that country it often seems
that the law is made by a lunatic, you never know when the lunatic may
not shoot you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of
Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth of the
mystery of America. Because I understand nothing, I recognise the thing
that we call a nation; and I salute the flag.

But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is a moral
which affords another reason for mentioning him. Whether he was a
sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly something about him that
suggested the adventurous violence of the old border life of America;
and whether he was connected with the police or no, there was certainly
violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most ardent policeman.
The posters in the paper-shop were placarded with the verdict in the
Hamon trial; a _cause celebre_ which reached its crisis in Oklahoma
while I was there. Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had
wronged, and his widow demanded justice, or what might fairly be called
vengeance. There was very great excitement culminating in the girl's
acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case appear to be entirely exceptional in
that breezy borderland. The moment the town had received the news that
Clara Smith was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double
stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on Main
Street,' or otherwise resuming their regular mode of life. It seemed as
much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our local energies are exhausted in