something lacking."

"I never hear a man hanker for liquor," said Conajo, as he poured out
a tin cup of coffee, "but I think of an incident my father used to
tell us boys at home. He was sheriff in Kentucky before we moved to
Texas. Was sheriff in the same county for twelve years. Counties are
very irregular back in the old States. Some look like a Mexican brand.
One of the rankest, rabid political admirers my father had lived away
out on a spur of this county. He lived good thirty miles from the
county seat. Didn't come to town over twice a year, but he always
stopped, generally over night, at our house. My father wouldn't have
it any other way. Talk about thieves being chummy; why, these two we
have here couldn't hold a candle to that man and my father. I can see
them parting just as distinctly as though it was yesterday. He would
always abuse my father for not coming to see him. 'Sam,' he would
say,--my father's name was Sam,--'Sam, why on earth is it that
you never come to see me? I've heard of you within ten miles of my
plantation, and you have never shown your face to us once. Do you
think we can't entertain you? Why, Sam, I've known you since you
weren't big enough to lead a hound dog. I've known you since you
weren't knee to a grasshopper.'

"'Let me have a word,' my father would put in, for he was very mild
in speaking; 'let me have a word, Joe. I hope you don't think for a
moment that I wouldn't like to visit you; now do you?'

"'No, I don't think so, Sam, but you don't come. That's why I'm
complaining. You never have come in the whole ten years you've been
sheriff, and you know that we have voted for you to a man, in our
neck of the woods.' My father felt this last remark, though I think