“I seen Pete Reeve,” began Bull bluntly.  “How come he’s in jail?”

“Him?” asked the other.  “Ain’t you heard?”

“No.”

The little man sighed with pleasure; he had given up hope of finding a new listener for that oft-told tale.  “It happened last night,” he confided.  “Along late in the afternoon in rides Johnny Strange.  He tells us he was out to Dan Armstrong’s place when, about noon, a little gray-headed man that give the name of Pete Reeve came in and asked for chow.  Of course Johnny Strange pricks up his ears when he hears the name.  We all heard about Pete Reeve, off and on, as about the slickest gunman that the ranges ever turned out.  So he looks Pete over and wonders at finding such a little man.”

The proprietor drew himself up to his full height.  “He didn’t know that size don’t make the man!  Well, Armstrong trotted out some chuck for Reeve, and after Pete had eaten, Johnny Strange suggested a game.  They sat in at three-handed stud poker.

“Things went along pretty good for Johnny.  He made a considerable winning.  Then it come late in the afternoon, and he seen he’d have to be getting back home.  He offered to bet everything he’d won, or double or nothing, and when the boys didn’t want to do that, it give him a clean hand to stand up and get out.  He got up and said good-bye and hung around a while to see how the next hands went.  So far as he could make out, Pete Reeve was losing pretty steady.  Then he come on in.

“Well, when Johnny Strange told about Pete being out there, Sheriff Anderson was in the room and he rises up.

“‘Don’t look good to me,’ he says.  ’If a gunfighter is losing money, most like he’ll fight to win it back.  Maybe I’ll go out and look that game over.’

“And saying that he slopes out of the room.

“Well, none of us took much stock in the sheriff going out to take care of Armstrong.  You see Armstrong was the old sheriff, and he give Anderson a pretty stiff run for his money last election.  They both been spending most of their time and energy the last few years hating each other.  When one of ’em is in office the other goes around saying that the gent that has the plum is a crook; and then Anderson goes out, and Armstrong comes in, and Anderson says the same thing about Armstrong.  Take ’em general and they always had the boys worried when they was together, for fear of a gunfight and bullets flying.  And so, when Anderson stands up and says he’s going out to see that Reeve don’t do no harm to Armstrong, we all sat back and kind of laughed.

“But we laughed at the wrong thing.  Long about an hour or so after dark we hear two men come walking up on the veranda, and one of ’em we knowed by the sound was the sheriff.”

“How could you tell by the sound?” asked Bull innocently.