"'Rested!" said Curly. "Who? Me?"

"Of course," drawled his newly constituted attorney. "Didn't you kill
the pig? You just hang around for a little, for when we need you, we
don't want to have to hunt all over the country."

"All right," said Curly, dubiously.

"Where's Blackman?" said Dan Anderson, again addressing me. "We have
got to have a judge, or we can't have any trial. Come on and let's
hunt him up. Curly, don't you run away, mind. You trust to me, and
I'll get you clear, and get you married, both."

"All right," said Curly again, "I'll just sornter down to the Lone
Star, and when you-all want me I'll be in there, either takin' a drink
or playin' a few kyards."

"Let's get Blackman now," said Curly's lawyer. Blackman was the duly
constituted Justice of the Peace in and for Heart's Desire. Nobody
knew precisely when or how he had been elected, and perhaps indeed he
never was elected at all. There must be a beginning for all things.
The one thing certain as to Blackman was that he had once been a
Justice of the Peace back in Kansas, which fact he had not been slow to
announce upon his arrival in Heart's Desire. Perhaps from this arose
the local custom of calling him Judge, and perhaps from his wearing the
latter title arose the supposition that he really was a judge. The
records are quite silent as to the origin of his tenure of office. The
office itself, as has been intimated, had hitherto been one purely
without care. At every little shooting scrape or other playfulness of
the male population Blackman, Justice of the Peace, became inflated