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The parlor-desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech; sitting his horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any touch of fire, but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and in a tone which harmonized with their character and made them impressively disrespectful. Youre a nice lotnow aint you? Just about eligible to travel with this bilk hereShadbelly Higginsthis loud-mouthed sneak that shoots people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If theres anything I do particularly despise, its a lynching mob; Ive never seen one that had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one before it can pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. Its made up of cowards, and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine times out of a hundred the sheriffs another one. He pausedapparently to turn that last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of itthen he went on: The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him is the lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundred and eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year. By the way its going, pretty soon therell be a new disease in the doctor bookssheriff complaint. That idea pleased himany one could see it. People will say, Sheriff sick again? Yes; got the same old thing. And next therell be a new title. People wont say, Hes running for sheriff of Rapaho County, for instance; theyll say, Hes running for Coward of Rapaho. Lord, the idea of a grown-up person being afraid of a lynch mob! He turned an eye on the captive, and said, Stranger, who are you, and what have you been doing? My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing anything. It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name made on the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He spoke up with feeling, and said it was a blot on the country that a man whose marvelous exploits had filled the world with their fame and their ingenuity, and whose histories of them had won every readers heart by the brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the name of the whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and told Constable Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personally responsible if he was molested again. The he turned to the mob and said: Hunt your holes, you scum! which they did; then he said: Follow me, Shadbelly; Ill take care of your case myself. Nokeep your pop-gun; whenever I see the day that Ill be afraid to have you behind me with that thing, itll be time for me to join last years hundred and eighty-two; and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following. When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time, we ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-up in the night and is gone! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him out if he likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested. |
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