The sheriff was an execrable politician, else he would have proceeded differently. Had he possessed the sagacity of a ward leader, how he would have corralled the reform vote by going at his task with beating of drums and a fanfare of announcements. Lafe took quite another method. He paid a call, in a spirit approaching friendliness, and after some vehement protests, he departed with a promise extracted. Dutch Annie was as good as her word. Next day a little company of pilgrims boarded the stage, bound for the railway. They looked sadly worn in the glare of sunlight, in spite of extravagant efforts with the rouge pot and the powder rag, but they put a brave face on the situation and exchanged badinage with a few choice spirits gathered to witness the departure. "Well, so long, Lafe," said Dutch Annie, who was a just woman, according to her lights. "It was right mean, but I reckon you had to do it. And you've acted the gen'l'man, which is more'n I can say for a lot of loafers in this here town." Sellers cracked his long whip, the mules lurched against their collars and the stage rattled away. This was the last that Badger ever saw of Dutch Annie. So quietly had the feat been accomplished that the town really did not awake to the fact until they had gone. Then criticism broke out. "I suppose you'd call it the right thing, looked at in a large way, Lafe," ventured the landlord of the Cowboys' Rest in mild protest. "It's more religious, in course. But you'd ought to have thunk of some of the boys." Others assumed a violent tone, but these excoriations were delivered where the sheriff did not hear them. Consequently they hurt neither him nor those who made them. They held that he had exceeded his duties and powers; his job was to do what was bidden in the by-laws to preserve order, not to regulate the private morals of everybody in the town. Man alive, first thing one knew, Johnson would be breaking up card play, and it wouldn't be safe for a man to shake dice with a barkeep for the drinks. Jake Taylor, who had once been a miner, and who had now joined the leisure classes through inclination rather than fortune, talked freely of the referendum and recall. The sheriff was fully aware of what was being said. Yet it gave him a new sense of power to feel, also, back of his act, the support of the better element. They arrayed themselves with him unostentatiously, for fear of ruptures that might work harm to business. Nevertheless, he knew their support could be counted on. Indeed, Turner and other substantial men of the place hastened to assure the sheriff that he had done a brave thing. Not a word of it did he breathe to Hetty, but when he called for her to go walking the following night, she was waiting for him at the gate, and when Johnson saw her smile of understanding and confidence, he knew he would not repent, whatever might befall. "No news of Steve yet," he told her.