The catspaw of Piperock

By W. C. Tuttle
Ike Harper and Dirty Shirt Jones return in a hilarious story of the Christmas Season
Dirty Shirt Jones and Scenery Sims got religion. That in itself ain’t of much interest, unless you knew these two. I’ve knowed lots of men who got religion jist like Dirty Shirt and Scenery got it. Remorse, that’s what she was—not religion. Too much liquor on an empty stummick. I’ve felt the error of my ways from the same cause.
Dirty Shirt Jones wasn’t very big. His face was kinda antegodlin’, and one eye sorta roamed around indefinite-like, usually comin’ to rest with the pupil lookin’ down the length of his nose, as though amazed at the crookedness of said organ. Dirty Shirt had some quaint ideas of humor, and as far back as I can remember, he’s harbored a deadly hatred against the towns of Yaller Horse and Paradise. Bein’ a loyal Piperocker he couldn’t do otherwise.
Scenery Sims is smaller than Dirty Shirt. He’s a hard little devil, this here Scenery Sims, almost bald, square above the ears, with eyes like a pair of faded shoe buttons, one flarin’ ear—and a sense of loyalty to Piperock.
It’s December in Piperock. There’s only one tree between Piperock and the North Pole, which don’t noways temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Piperock ain’t no metropolis—but, gentlemen, she’s a town. We sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish together. As Magpie Simpkins says, “We’re one and indigestible.”
Me and Dirty Shirt have been tryin’ to wrest some wealth from the bosom of Mother Nature on the headwaters of Plenty Stone Creek, but the weather drove us back to the fleshpots, where we’re doomed to spend the rest of the winter. I’ve been spendin’ two days against a stove, tryin’ to git some heat inside my frozen carcass. When I does pilgrim uptown, I finds old Dirty Shirt settin’ on the sidewalk in front of Buck Masterson’s saloon. He’s humped up there, with his old mackinaw collar above his ears, hands shoved down inside his old yaller angora chaps, settin’ there in the snow, the thermometer below zero—and right behind him is the saloon, where boot heels are sizzlin’ against the old base burner, and water gittin’ hot for the next round of drinks.