“After the note?”
“Ain’t I tellin’ you? Gee-wollops, but this is fierce! I took all that was comin’ to you, that trip. You see, I was all kivered up with the blanket, and them junipers couldn’t tell the diff’rence between Jimmie, the Jonah, and Red Owen—so they handed it to me proper.” He chuckled. “But they got fooled,” he added.
“When did this happen, Jimmie?” asked Owen, trying to keep down his excitement.
“No sabe, pard. I was sleepin’ like old Rip Van when I felt some un ropin’ me. The blanket was twisted about my head and tied close to my neck, and I couldn’t talk and couldn’t hardly breathe. Then my hands was lashed to my sides and my feet tied at the ankles, and there wasn’t a thing I could do.” Again he chuckled, rubbing his throat tenderly. “But they sure got fooled plumb out of their eye teeth!” he finished.
“They thought you were me, and they were trying to get that thousand-dollar note?”
“I wasn’t so badly wrapped up that I couldn’t hear a little o’ what went on,” proceeded Fortune. “The feller that was tyin’ me says to some un else, ‘Get that note out o’ the wallet in his shirt,’ he says.
“‘It ain’t here,’ the other comes back.
“‘Look in his pants,’ says Number One.
“‘Not there, nuther,’ says Number Two. ‘See if he ain’t got it under his piller.’