LD Beaver Smith, the justice of the peace of Paradise, was holding court. Behind his chair, on the store's dingy wall, hung the certificate of his appointment. Before him on the counter lay a yellow volume of the Arizona statutes. Tinkham, the constable, sat conveniently between the whisky-barrel and the counter's end. Thus every morning at the hour of ten, for a month past, these two had assumed their places in the rear of the establishment, which forthwith suspended its functions of supplying the community with every sort of wares from patent medicines to cartridges, and became, for the time being, the law's temple.
Of that serene judicial calm which is the proper attribute of those holding the reins of justice, old Beaver's countenance bore not a trace. An unpleasant light gleamed in his narrowed eyes; his goat's beard stood out at an angle with his chin; at intervals he tugged it savagely. And Tinkham sat bent forward glowering beneath his bushy brows. Confronting court and constable, the town's six leading citizens stood waiting in heavy silence upon the former's word.
The law had come to Paradise; but on this morning, after a month's sojourn, the question was whether or not the law was going to remain.
The justice of the peace ceased tugging at his wisp of whisker and addressed the sextet whom he had summoned here for conference.
“The showdown's come,” said he. “What do yo' aim to do?”
They shifted their booted feet uneasily. This experiment with formal rules of action had been rather pleasing as long as things moved smoothly; there was not one of them but had felt a certain enjoyment—which was not unmixed with pride—in watching the application of the Territory's statutes to such cases as had arisen in their midst. But now that complications had developed, they were smitten with a sort of trepidation at the idea of laying their hands on the machinery.
URT WILCOX was the first to find expression.
“When the Sheriff come over from Tombstone,” the cow-man said slowly, pausing between phrases to stroke his drooping mustache, “an' give out the word that this camp had grown too big to run itself, we got yo' to take this job an' promised yo' we'd back yo'r play. We aim to see that this co't gets an even break. But we have got to know the right way to go about it, an' yo'r the man to tell us.” He looked around him for assent.
“Curt is right,” Bronco Bob Lee asserted with finality. He was the youngest of them all, but the width of his experience, which had included border cattle-raiding, faro-dealing and traffic with Mexican smugglers, before he became part owner of the camp's best-paying mine, gave him high standing. “We are plumb busy these days, making money, every man of us. So none of us is keepin' cases on yo'r justice-co't. Me, I'd like to hear the hull business from the start. All. that I know is that this outlaw Mimbres an' his gang has been shootin' up the town ag'in.”
“That's all there is to know, I reckon,” the outraged court informed him. “An' it ought to be enough fer any man. Here I be, every mo'nin', finin' miners an' Mexicans that has raised too much hell the night before. An' all han's take their medicine without a kick, ontel Mimbres gets the notion of ridin' over to Paradise. Fust time he shows up, the' aint much harm—only a few lights shot out an' busted windows an' the like o' that. But last week he puts a bullet through Lon Jenkins' back-bar mirror an' drills a Mexican between the eyes. So Jenkins comes an' makes a kick—which I don't blame him none, fer them mirrors cost a heap of money. Me, I send out word by Tinkham that sech foolishness has got to stop. Then Mimbres rides into town last night along with Black Jack Davis an' Bill Fallon, an' when he hears my orders, he tears loose an' busts the hull street wide open. What's more, he creases Tinkham; who is tryin' to get action with a sawed-off shotgun.”
He paused and clutched his shred of whisker while he spat.
“That brings the showdown. Question is, does this here co't, or Mimbres, run the town of Paradise.”
“The way it looks to me,” suggested Pony Deal, whose wagon-outfits had been carrying freight into the country since the days when Cochise was on the warpath, “this would be easy. All we got to do is lay fer the gang next time they come along, an' kill 'em.”
Old Beaver shook his head.
“That aint the law. The statutes are plain in these here matters. If a man would tell the co't to go to hell over in Tucson like Mimbres has done here, the jedge would show him where to haid in mighty quick.”
“Well,” Curt Wilcox demanded, “what would the jedge do, Beaver?”