"State your case, Cal," he said.

Cal waved a graceful hand at a stout, burly, red-faced man whose thick
blunt fingers, square blue jowl, and tilted cigar gave the flavour of the
professional politician. "John Webb, here-excuse _me_, Sheriff John Webb-
presumin' on the fact that he has been to the mines, and that he came here
in '49, arrogates to himself the exclusive lyin' privileges, of this
assemblage."

"Pretty large order," commented Sherwood.

"_Pre_cisely," agreed Cal, "and that's why the drinks are on him!"

But Sheriff Webb, who had been chuckling cavernously inside his bulky
frame, spoke up in a harsh and husky voice: "I told them an innocent
experience of mine, and they try to hold me up for drinks. I don't object
to giving them a reasonable amount of drinks--what _I_ call reasonable," he
added hastily, "but I object to being held up."

"He says he used to cook," put in a small, alert, nervous, rather flashily
dressed individual named Rowlee, editor of the _Bugle_.

"I did!" stoutly asseverated Webb.

"And that he baked a loaf of bread so hard nobody could eat it."

"Sounds perfectly reasonable," said Sherwood.

"And that nobody could _break_ it," Rowlee went on.