It seemed that Sipes, when he arrived from the village, had pictured to Bascom the glories of a certain robin pie, “with little dumplins,” that he said Narcissus had once compounded, and the fascinated onion-skinner, although knowing that it was illegal to kill songsters, had taken the risk of going out with his gun to obtain material for another one. He was mad all the way through, but was a much subdued man.
“Them robins is song birds, an’ it’s ag’in the law to kill ’em at any time,” said the warden. “They’re wuth ten dollars apiece an’ costs to the state, an’ you’ve got to go to the county seat with me. Mebbe you’ll be jugged too, fer they’re pretty severe with fellers that shoot little birds.”
Bascom offered to fix up the matter privately, on a liberal financial basis, but the minion of the law was inexorable. The culprit must have regarded that part of the country as most peculiar and inhospitable.
Erskine Douglas Potts, the game warden, was a lengthy loose-jointed individual. One eye drooped in a peculiar way, and seemed to rove independently of the other. Sipes declared that “Doug’ c’n look up in a tree with one eye, an’ down a hole with the other lamp at the same time.” Odd humor radiated from him and he had a deep sense of his dignity as an upholder of the “revised stat-toots.” Two printed copies of the state game laws protruded from the top of his trousers, where they were secured by a safety pin. “Casey,” his small yellow dog, was his inseparable companion. They were a devoted pair of chums and Potts refused to allow a “pitcher” to be made of him unless the dog was included.
Casey was an animal of rare acumen. He had once taken the prize at a village dog-show, where intelligence and not breeding was considered, and his laurels were regarded as imperishable by his proud master.
“They didn’t put me up, but if they had I’d ’a’ lost out ’side o’ him,” he remarked. “The dogs is the smartest things in that town, an’ they couldn’t be no kind of a brain show thar without ’em. This dog’s a wonder. He knows the time o’ day, an’ all the short cuts through the woods an’ sand-hills. We ain’t neither of us got no pedigrees, but we seem to navigate ’round pretty well without ’em.
“W’en we hear any shoot’n off in the woods we go out on a still-hunt. Casey finds the foot trails an’ follers ’em up. ’Tain’t long ’fore we spot the feller with the gun. Then we foregather with ’im an’ ask fer ’is shoot’n license, an’ inspect wot ’e’s got. If it’s song birds, er game out o’ season, we form in line an’ perceed to whar the scales o’ justice hang, an’ the feller has to loosen up.
“Casey hikes down to the depot w’en they’s anybody that with baggage er packages, an’ sniffs ’em over. If ’e scents any birds ’e alw’ys lets me know. I git half o’ the fines that’s levied, an’ this ’ere bag we’ve jest brought in looks like pretty good pickin’. It’s durn poor shoot’n that don’t shake down sump’n fer somebody. Casey an’ me lives alone, an’ we have lots o’ long talks together. He knows more’n most lawyers. He’s my depity, an’ I couldn’t git along without ’im. A feller that owns a nice new breech loadin’ gun offered to trade me a horse fer ’im last week, but they was nothin’ doin’.
“Me an’ Casey don’t miss much that goes on ’round ’ere. After them robins is took off o’ the bar o’ justice, we’ll fetch ’em back, if the jedge don’t cop ’em, an’ we’ll let yer dark-spot cook ’em, an’ we’ll have a pie that’s all our own. Yer moneyed friend c’n think about it while ’e’s in the county jail countin’ the change ’e’s got left.”
It was arranged that the prisoner and his marble-hearted captor should be taken to the village that night in the Crawfish, and the journey to the county seat made the next day.