Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy

When Jarrod finally sold out the Crosbys he had a chance to breathe freely for the first time in years. The Crosbys had been big ranch owners and herders, mine owners, timber and mill owners, bankers, brokers, bucket-shop manipulators and confirmed bull-dozers and confidence-men. They played the game for big stakes always and won by sheer nerve and audacity.

Jarrod was their lawyer and they kept him in hot water every minute. They had a habit of rounding up other folks' cattle, cutting other people's timber, jumping claims, tapping mines and misbehaving generally. And Jarrod had to straighten out these misdeeds and find a way to keep his clients from behind the bars.

Old man Crosby, who had been shot in the hip in a raid, ran the Bank of Oklahoma, and ran it so crookedly that Jarrod was often in despair. No one would believe a Crosby under oath, while Jarrod was acknowledged by even his enemies to be square as a die and fair as the scales of justice. So his position was extremely difficult. He saved the Crosbys from their misdeeds for years, by dint of hard work and constant diplomacy, and at last, when a thousand penalties confronted them and could not be staved off much longer, the lawyer managed to sell for them their entire holdings and induced them to retire from business in general and lawlessness in particular.