“I hear you loud and clear, Sergeant,” Winston said emphatically.  “We have four Brownings.  Take two of them.  And a fifth man to bring the car back.  Counting in my head.  Where do I get five men?”

“Special Auxiliary Deputies,” Schroeder said. “I know who is reliable and needs the money.”

“Gramps said if something strange happens, I let the Sergeant tell me which orders to give. Do it!” Winston ordered. 

&&&&&

The next morning found Winston and a deputy at the landing strip.  Mayor Starling, Ulysses Butler and Melanie Hayes stood at is side.  The Mayor had listened half-politely to Winston’s late-night phone call, had driven to the corral the next morning to see the dead spiders,  and promptly agreed that they were not a hoax.  They were, however, remarkably heavy for their size.

“Fortunately,” Mayor Starling had said, “the bounty comes out of the State Treasury, not Prescott’s. Miss Hayes, you are no longer  an entirely poor woman.”

The hum of the motor of a Curtiss Oriole could be heard in the distance.

“They made good time,” Butler said.  “They took off right after first light.”

“It’s amazing,” Starling said.  “Fifty years ago, the fastest you could do was a train, if one was scheduled at the right time,and if rails went in the right places.   That plane left when people reached the airport, flew at seventy miles an hour all the way, and will be here in a few minutes.”

The clip-clop of horse’s hooves came from behind them. Starling turned, then tried to mask a frown.

“Mistress Sarah,” he managed, “As always, good to see our city’s most famous business woman.  I trust ostrich farming is doing well.”

“As always,” she answered. “But I must thank this young man,” she pointed at Winston, “for warning us that my ostriches might be in danger.”

“You called her?” Starling growled at Winston.

“People up late at night,” Winston answered.  “A good stock of guns, and men who know how to use them.”

“Fair enough,” Starling answered.

“Winston, dear,” Sarah said, “you being a young man I never see or talk to, except as you  visit while being a sheriff with two deputies,  I can’t say I believed you completely  until I saw those creatures this morning.  They are truly ugly.”

“Ma’am,” Winston answered,  “I wouldn’t have believed it myself, except I saw them while they were still alive.”

And that is as far as I have written. We have yet to meet President Harding, barbed wire, alien plants, army artillery, air strikes, or, of course, Professor Goddard and his rockets with photocell tracking, not to mention several scientific Congresses and Thomas Edison.