"I ain't in on writin' the letter," Curly decided; "I'll carry it, but my writin' is too sot, and so's my thinker."
"Well, I ain't used my own thinker in this particular way for about twenty years," said Tom Osby, "although I did co'te two of my wives by perlite correspondence, something like this; and I couldn't see but what them wives lasted as good as any."
"It's too bad Dan Anderson ain't in on this play hisself," Curly resumed. "Now if it was us that was layin' dead, and him writin' the letter, he'd have us both alive, and have the girl here by two o'clock to-morrer, and everything 'd be lovely. But us! We don't know any more about this than a pair of candy frogs."
"The fewer there is in on a woman deal the better," said Tom Osby, "and yet it looks like we needed help right now!"
The two sat gazing gloomily down the long street of Heart's Desire, and so intent were they that they did not see the shambling figure of Willie the sheepherder coming up the street. Then Tom Osby's gaze focussed him.
"Now there's that damned sheepherder that broke us up in business," said he. "It was him that got us into this fix. If he hadn't lied like a infernal pirate, and got Dan Anderson to thinkin' that the girl and this lawyer feller Barkley was engaged to each other on the side, why Dan wouldn't have flared up and busted the railroad deal, and let the girl get away, and gone and got hisself shot."
"S'posin' I shoot Willie up just for luck," suggested Curly. "He's got it comin' to him, from the way that Gee-Whiz friend of his throwed lead into our fellers, time we was arguin' with them over them sheep. This country ain't got no use for sheep, nor sheepherders either, specially the kind that makes trouble with railroads, and girls."
"No, hold on a minute," interrupted Tom Osby. "You wait—I've got a idea."
"Well, what is it?"
"Wait a minute. How saith the psalmist? All men is liars; and sheepherders special, natural, eighteen-karat, hand-curled liars—which is just the sort we need right now in our business."