We spent the next few days in a state of restlessness, because Aggy said he'd explain when the news would do us good. One thing made the cow-punch ready for gun practice right off, Mr. Troy was a slippery cuss, and he had rather ki-boshed Jack Hunter's girl. He hung around her, fetched and carried, nailed up greens for her and all that, till you could see he was leaving himself two trails—either skip with the funds or marry the girl. He had one day left to choose. Having locoed the townsfolk into giving him the management of the festivities, he stood well, and he wasn't a bad looker neither. He had an easy, slippery tongue for a young girl: not like Ag's methods—in any gatherin' Ag could make George Washington or General Grant look like visitors—but smooth and languishin'.
I had to calm the cow-punch by telling him we was in a law and order community, and that shootin' was rude, also that Aggy could be counted on to do everything necessary. That morning Ag gave me strict orders, according to which I loped out to a little canyon where a spring bubbled, and there, sure enough, was Troy, talkin' honey to Jack's girl. I slid close enough to hear him. He made out a good case, but when it come to the last card the girl wasn't so interested in the story. She had sense after all; girls can't be blamed for being a little foolish. Well, Troy, he argued and urged, till at last up gits little Lorna and says it's impossible, and that there's another man in the question, and so Troy stands there mournful till she's out of sight, and then hikes for the railroad, with a two-hundred dollar cash present for the minister in his pocket, and probably another seventy-five or a hundred in odds and ends.
And after him went Hy Smith, also. He flagged a train about a mile out of town and hopped aboard. I come out of the bush and took the last car, telling the brakie a much-needed man had got on forward. Also, I took the Con. into my confidence. So just when we pulled into the next town I steps behind Mr. Troy, puts a gun against the back of his neck, and read the paper Ag had prepared for me.
"Now, Mr. Troy, alias Paris, alias Goat, etc., come with me, or go forward in the icebox. Don't make a fuss or we'll alarm the ladies—I've read you the warrant!"
He walked ahead as meek as Moses. By a cross-cut across the hills it weren't more than four mile to Cactus, and Troy stepped it like a four-year-old.
We come in behind the church. "That you, Hy?" says Ag. "Bring our friend, Mr. Troy, through the rear. If you don't know the way, he'll sell you a map for ten dollars."
"Whenever you want to die, just holler," says I to Troy. It was a quiet journey. When we got inside, there was Ag and the cow-punch, smiling kindly. Ag was mixing paint in a pot.
"They used few colours in this edifice," says Ag, "otherwise I could have produced something surprising. Blue for the hair," says he, "a sign of purity." So he painted Troy's hair blue. And he painted a red stripe down the nose and small queer rings all over his face, and with a pair of lamp scissors he roached Troy's name like a mule—and, well, he did make something uncommon out of Troy.
"Lovely thing!" says Ag, coquettish, and pokes him with his finger.
Troy, he didn't say nothing. In fact, when you come to think of it, there wasn't many sparkling thoughts for him to put out.