Perez laughed, and riding up to the tavern end of the jail, dismounted,
and going into the barroom, ordered a plate of pork and beans. Feeling
in excellent humor he fell to conversing over his modest meal with the
landlord, a big, beefy man, who evidently liked to hear himself talk,
and in a gross sort of way, appeared to be rather good natured.

"I saw a good many red flags on farmhouses, as I was coming up from
Sheffield, this morning," said Perez. "You haven't got the smallpox in
the county again, have you?"

"Them wuz sheriff's sales," said the landlord, laughing uproariously,
in which he was joined by a seedy, red-nosed character, addressed as
Zeke, who appeared to be a hanger-on of the barroom in the function of
echo to the landlord's jokes.

"Ye'll git uster that air red flag ef ye stay long in these parts. Ye
ain't so fer from right arter all, though, fer I guess mos' folks'd
baout as leeve hev the smallpox in the house ez the sheriff."

"Times are pretty hard hereabouts, are they?"

"Wal, yes, they be baout ez hard ez they kin be, but ye see it's wuss
in this ere caounty 'n 'tis 'n mos' places, cause ther warn't nary
court here fer six or eight year, till lately, an no debts wuz klected
'n so they've kinder piled up. I callate they ain't but dern few
fellers in the caounty 'cept the parsons, 'n lawyers, 'n doctors ez
ain't a bein sued ted-day, 'specially the farmers. I tell you it makes
business lively fer the lawyers an sheriffs. They're the ones ez rides
in kerridges these days."