False face

By Ernest Haycox
Author of “A Good Man to Lie For,” etc.

“Now listen, you gol-durned, slab-footed curmudgeon,” exclaimed Sheriff Bart McKenzie, “you’re goin’ to take the deppity star I give you! Don’t want to hear no more objections. It’s my duty an’ privilege to draft an’ swear in whomsoever I choose. You ain’t got no right to stand there an’ tell me you feel disinclined to serve yore country; it’s a downright perversion of public sperrit, and I’m not a-goin’ to stand fer it.”

“Don’t want nuthin’ to do with it,” repeated old Dave Budd with a still greater vehemence. “Ain’t goin’ to go around with that hunk o’ tin on my shirt lookin’ like a dumb fool.”

“Fool?” roared Bart McKenzie. “I take it I look like a fool fer carryin’ my star, then?’

“You’re a duly ’lected sheriff,” explained Budd. “People wanted you to serve, or they wouldn’t have voted you in. As fer me, I’m a fat, old man, and my fightin’ days are plumb past. Git yoreself some young and spry feller that likes to ride saddle all night long, or live on a slice o’ bacon four days runnin’. Me, I got to have more comfort in my old age, Bart.”