Hiram’s shoulders straightened and he pulled his trailing moustaches with a bit of swagger.
“She was out just to do someone so’s she and Dellybunko could get away with the stuff,” insisted Peak.
“She says so in the letter, and you was smart and I was easy—that’s all!”
“It’s the old army game, gents!” squawked the parrot. He cracked his beak against the bars of the cage.
Hiram shoved his hands into his pockets and with a sort of meditative air of conscious superiority kicked another spoke out of the wheel.
“Hadn’t you just as soon tear pickets off’n the fence, there, or something of that sort?” wistfully asked Peak. “This is all I’ve got left, and, honestly, I’ve never had no great courage to do anything since she run away with that sixteen hundred. I never had no great enterprise and ability like you’ve got, anyway. I just went all to pieces.”
He scrubbed his raspy palms on his upcocked knees.
“I didn’t really want to run away with her, Hiram, but she bossed me into it. I never was no hand to stand up for my rights. I could lift weights and let ‘em crack a marble block on my chest, but anyone with a limber tongue could allus talk me ’round—and I guess they allus can. I wish she’d stuck to you and let me alone.” His big hands trembled on his knees, and his weak face with its flabby chops had the wistful look one sees on a foxhound’s visage. “When did you give up the road?” he asked, evidently willing to change the subject.
“Haven’t given it up,” snapped Hiram, scowling. “There’s the waggons over there, and the round-top and seats are stored, and I’ve got my elephant. I’m liable to buy a lemon and a square hunk of glass and start out again ’most any time.”
Hiram couldn’t help winking his good eye at his old partner in “shenanigan,” though his face hardened again the moment after. Peak chuckled fulsome appreciation, Still eager to placate, he said: