vain for some steady employment. Lawyer Locock, however, had promised to
let me study law with him, and to give me a few dollars a month besides,
for my services as a clerk. I was fairly satisfied with the prospect,
and the little town interested me. An outpost of civilization, it was
situated on the border of the great plains, which were still looked upon
as the natural possession of the nomadic Indian tribes. It owed its
importance to the fact that it lay on the cattle-trail which led from
the prairies of Texas through this no man's land to the railway system,
and that it was the first place where the cowboys coming north could
find a bed to sleep in, a bar to drink at, and a table to gamble on. For
some years they had made of Kiota a hell upon earth. But gradually the
land in the neighbourhood was taken up by farmers, emigrants chiefly
from New England, who were determined to put an end to the reign of
violence. A man named Johnson was their leader in establishing order and
tranquillity. Elected, almost as soon as he came to the town, to the
dangerous post of City Marshal, he organized a vigilance committee of
the younger and more daring settlers, backed by whom he resolutely
suppressed the drunken rioting of the cowboys. After the ruffians had
been taught to behave themselves, Johnson was made Sheriff of the
County, a post which gave him a house and permanent position. Though
married now, and apparently "settled down," the Sheriff was a sort of
hero in Kiota. I had listened to many tales about him, showing desperate
determination veined with a sense of humour, and I often regretted that
I had reached the place too late to see him in action. I had little or
nothing to do in the office. The tedium of the long days was almost
unbroken, and Stephen's "Commentaries" had become as monotonous and
unattractive as the bare uncarpeted floor. The heat was tropical, and I
was dozing when a knock startled me. A negro boy slouched in with a
bundle of newspapers: