The preacher turned to the officer and said:
"Then suppose I let him go, on his promise to stick to his father for the rest of his life!"
"He's your pris'ner," repeated the sheriff.
"Suppose, then, I were to insist upon your taking him into custody."
"Why, then," said the sheriff, speaking like a man in the depths of meditation, "I would let him go myself, and--and I'd have to shoot _you_ to save my reputation as a faithful officer."
The preacher made a peculiar face. The prisoner exclaimed:
The sheriff removed the handcuffs, dived into his own pocket, brought out a pocket-comb and glass, and handed them to the thief; then he placed the lantern in front of him, and said:
"Fix yourself up a little. Your hat's a miz'able one--I'll swap with you. You've got to make up some cock-and-bull story now, for the old man'll want to know everything. You might say you'd been a sheriff down South somewhere since you got away from the feller that owned you."
The preacher paused over a knot in one of the cords on the prisoner's legs, and said:
"Say you were a circuit-rider--that's more near the literal truth."
The sheriff seemed to demur somewhat, and he said, at length:
"Without meanin' any disrespect, parson, don't you think 'twould tickle the old man and the citizens more to think he'd been a sheriff? They wouldn't dare to ask him so many questions then, either. And it might be onhandy for him if he was asked to preach, while a smart horse-thief has naturally got some of the p'ints of a real sheriff about him."
"You insist upon it that he's my prisoner," said the preacher, tugging away at his knot, "and I insist upon the circuit-rider story. And," continued the young man, with one mighty pull at the knot, "he's _got_ to be a circuit-rider, and I'm going to make one of him. Do you hear that, young man? I'm the man that's setting you free and giving you to your father!"
"You can make anything you please out of me," said the prisoner. "Only hurry!"
"As you say, parson," remarked the sheriff, with admirable meekness; "he's _your_ prisoner, but I _could_ make a splendid deputy out of him if you'd let him take my advice. And I'd agree to work for his nomination for my place when my term runs out. Think of what he might get to be!--there _has_ sheriffs gone to the Legislature, and I've heard of one that went to Congress."