"It's no use kickin'; you know what Lamb says—that these daylight buryin's makes talk amongst the neighbors."
"Should think it would," retorted the grave-digger, "with them typhoids dyin' like flies."
"I thought of a joke, Lem."
"Undertakin' is a comical business; what is it?"
"When an undertaker's sick ought he to go to the doctor what gives him the most work or the least?"
"You got me; I'll think it over and let you know."
In spite of his garrulous complaints the grave-digger was at work in a new grave on the sagebrush flat a mile or more from town when the undertaker and the liveryman drove up at midnight with all that remained of Billy Duncan jolting in the box of a lumber wagon.
The coffin of unplaned lumber was unloaded at the grave and the liveryman hastened away, for he himself had no liking for these nocturnal drives, but neither was he the man to quarrel with his own interests. If the Health Officer and His Honor, the mayor, asked no questions when the hospital deaths went unreported, he felt that these frequent midnight pilgrimages were no concern of his.
The undertaker peered into the shallow grave.
"This hole looks like a chicken had been dustin' itself."