"He trails along behind me, and his head is hanging low and he mutters to hisself. Injun file we retraces our weary footsteps until we comes once more to the village of Plentiful Valley. We goes along Main Street—I know it's Main Street because it's the only street there is—until we comes to a small brick building which you could tell by the bars at the windows that it was either the local bank or the calaboose. On the steps of this here establishment stands a party almost entirely concealed in whiskers. But on his breast I sees a German silver badge gleaming like a full moon seen through thick brush.
"'The town constable, I believe?' I says to him.
"'The same,' he says. 'What can I do for for you?'
"'Lock us up,' I says, '—him and me both. We're tramps,' I says, 'vagrants, derilicks wandering to and fro,' I says, 'like raging lions seeking whatsoever we might devour—and not,' I says, 'having no luck. We are dangerous characters,' I says, 'and it's a shame to leave us at large. Lock us up,' I says, 'and feed us.'
"'Nothing doing,' he says. 'Try the next town—it's only nine miles and a good hard road all the way.'
"'I thought,' I says, 'that you took a hidebound oath never to shave until you'd locked up a thousand tramps.'
"'Yep, he says, 'that's so; but you're a little late. I pinched him about an hour ago.'
"'Pinched who?' I says.