Excerpt from The Sheriff of WascoThis was the reason for the rejoicing and the lack of opposition in Wasco.He entered on his duties as Sherifi with a quiet enthusiasm that hugely delighted his friends, because they knew its meaning so well. Though he was young he was of the kind that raises expectations in men's minds when cool ness and ready wit and iron courage are the needs of the moment. Tall, lean and brown, with a gray-blue fearless eye that women remem bered and criminals also if they lived long enough, he knew every one of the desperadoes by sight, and they knew him for the best shot in Oregon.Some day, sooner or later, Hardeman was go ing to meet a man who could fight, and who could draw his gun with a quick, silent, hitching mo tion that was quicker than the draw of any other man in the Northwest, and the county of Wasco was deeply, supremely confident of the result.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.