Next morning we made a pretty careful search of the whole mill, but we didn’t find anybody, and nothing had been damaged. The only thing we could think of was that somebody must have been sent in there by Wiggamore to smash something up, but had been frightened away by us. The thing that had us guessing was where he vanished to. He had been in that place up-stairs when we went up, and he must have been there when we were. He didn’t go down the stairs, because Binney never left the top step and nobody passed him. I guess he was a magician, all right, whoever he was. It sort of worried us, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it except keep our eyes open.

Mark said right off, as soon as we got a minute to spare, that the thing for us to keep in mind was George Piggins. He said it wasn’t “Pike’s Peak or bust” with us, but “George Piggins or bust,” and he let on he didn’t look with no special pleasure on busting. I guess nobody else would that was any place around him. There was too much of him to bust. If he did it he’d be spread all over a couple of counties.

“Well,” says I, “let’s start looking for George. I’ll begin by lookin’ in the jail and under my bed. If he hain’t neither of those places I’m hanged if I know where he can be.”

“Plunk,” says Mark, “that come clost to bein’ f-f-funny. I ’most laughed right out.”

“It was funny,” says I. “Trouble with you is you hain’t been brought up to see a joke.”

“Maybe,” says he, “I can’t see a j-joke that is, but I’m perty average sure to see when one hain’t. And that one,” says he, “was a star m-member of the Hain’t family.”

“All right,” says I, “you spring a joke and see how you make out.”

“When I s-spring one,” says he, “it’ll be a joke, you can bet. I won’t just shoot off somethin’ on the chance somebody’ll laugh. I’ll study over it some, and kind of try it out in my mind, and maybe repeat it out loud to myself a couple of times to see how it sounds when I say it. That’s the way to do with jokes. Jokes is like dollars. A good dollar is worth a hundred cents, but a bad dollar is apt to get you s-s-shut up in jail. Or eggs,” says he. “You don’t have to crack a joke to tell if it’s bad, like you do an egg.”

“I suppose,” says I, “that was a joke?”

“There’s folks would call it sich,” says he.

“Aw, come on,” says Binney. “Quit your jawin’ like old wimmin at a knittin’-bee and git to work. What’s goin’ to be done?”

“I wisht I knew,” says Mark.

“If we found him he wouldn’t come back,” says Binney. “He’d be afraid of the sheriff.”

Mark slapped his leg. “There’s somethin’ for us to d-d-do,” says he. “We kin fix it so George dast come back.”

So he sent Binney after the mail, and Tallow to order in a car to make a shipment, and him and I went off to see the deputy sheriff, whose name was Whoppleham. Mostly you could find him down by the blacksmith shop pitching horseshoes. He was about the best horseshoe-pitcher in the county. He was there, all right, pitching with old Jim Battershaw, and they was down on their knees measuring from the peg to a couple of horseshoes with a piece of string to find out which was the nearest, and quarreling about it as if it was the most important thing that had happened in the world since Noah built his ark. We waited for them to decide which horseshoe was nearest, but they couldn’t decide, and they wouldn’t call it even. I calc’late they’d have gone for the county surveyor to measure them up scientific if just then Battershaw’s setter-dog and Whoppleham’s shepherd-dog hadn’t got tired of waiting and started an argument of their own. It was quite considerable of an argument, and it come swinging and clawing and snarling right across the lot to where the horseshoes was and settled down to business there. The way them dogs clawed into the ground and kicked up the dust was a caution, and old Battershaw and Whoppleham dancing around the edge of it, hollering like all-git-out and trying to stop it.

Well, all of a sudden the setter give up the ship and tucked his tail between his legs and scooted, with the shepherd after him lickety-split. When they was gone and we looked at the peg and the horseshoes there wasn’t anything left to argue about. Those dogs had kicked them galley west and come nigh to digging up the peg. It was a fine thing for both those men, because it gave them something to argue about all the rest of their lives, with no chance of having the argument settled. I’ll bet that in ten years they’ll still be slanging and sassing each other about that game, each of them insisting his horseshoe was the nearest. That’s the kind of old coots they are.

Well, it gave Mark his chance to speak to Whoppleham, and he done so.

“Mr. Sheriff,” says he, “kin I s-s-speak to you for a m-minute?”

“I’m busy,” says the sheriff.

“This is official b-b-business,” says Mark.

“Oh!... Hum!... Official, eh? Somebody been breakin’ the law hereabouts? Out with it, young feller. Sheriff Whoppleham’s the man for you.” He pointed down to the star on his suspenders and says: “The people has confidence in me, I guess, or they wouldn’t never have put me into this here position of trust and confidence. I guess they knew who would be able to clean out the criminals of these parts. They knowed a venturesome man when they seen one, and a man that wouldn’t stop at nothin’ in the int’rests of justice. What crime’s been did, and who done it?”

“We want to s-s-speak about George Piggins,” says Mark.

“Have you seen that there crim’nal? Eh? Where’s he hidin’? I know he’s dangerous and desprit, but be I hesitatin’? Be I timid? I guess not. Sheriff Whoppleham would be willin’ to face Jesse James and drag him to jail by the whiskers. Lucky for them Western bandits I never went out there to mix in. I’d have cleaned ’em up perty quick.”

“We don’t know where he is,” says Mark, “but we want to talk to you about f-f-fixin’ up that hog-stealin’ so he can come home and not be molested.”

“Fix it? How?”

“Well, Mr. Hooker’s got back his hog and no harm’s been done. We f-f-figgered maybe you would be willin’ to call it square and let George come home if he promised never to do it again.”

“Huh!” says the sheriff. “What’s everybody so doggone int’rested into George for, all of a sudden? Nobody was excited about him none a spell back, but now it looks like everybody seen all to once that there wasn’t no harm in him and he ought to be let home without havin’ to suffer for bein’ a miscreant. What’s the meanin’ of it?”

“Has somebody else been to see about him?” says Mark.

“I should smile,” says the sheriff. “Why, this mornin’ there was a reg’lar delegation, and who d’you s’pose come along with them but Hooker himself? Yes, sir. And they wanted the charge should be dropped and George let home. I says to ’em that my job was ketchin’ dangerous crim’nals, not pardonin’ ’em, and that they’d have to thrash it out with the prosecutin’ attorney. So they went off to do that.... What I want to know is, how do they expect a officer of the law to do his duty and bring crim’nals to justice if folks goes around gettin’ ’em let off by prosecutin’ attorneys? How? Eh? Well, then. They’re cuttin’ into my trade, that’s what, and I hain’t goin’ to stand for it. I’m goin’ out to ketch George Piggins before he gits pardoned, that’s what I be, and I’m a-goin’ to drag him to jail dead o............