“‘See here!’ he sais, not satisfied. ‘I can’t see what good it ’ud do you to shoot me ef I was to call one o’ them searchin’ parties to take a look in my pack. You’d hev to hang anyway. Why couldn’t ye jest shoot yourself?’
“‘You’re wastin’ walable time,’ Si answers. ‘I’ll kill myself sooner than be catched. Ez long ez you know that you’ll be killed ef I am catched, you won’t bother callin’ folks to see what you are carryin’. An’, Tom,’ he went on, ‘I might jest ez well tell you now that ’hen we git well out o’ harm’s way, I’m goin’ to shoot ye anyhow. I don’t want to leave no one ’round to blab.’
“Si Berrybush smiled the innercentest smile you uns ever see, an’ the pedler chewed a straw a spell.
“Then he looks up an’ sais, ‘You must take me for a dummy?’
“‘Why?’ Si asts.
“‘Do you think I’ll lug you thirty or forty mile jest so you can shoot me?’ answers Buttonporgie. ‘I might ez well call it up now!’ he sais.
“Si cocked his pistol careless-like an’ pinted it at the other man’s head ez tho’ it was his finger an’ he was jest makin’ a good argyment on religion.
“‘You are a dummy,’ he sais, laughin’. ‘Now don’t you s’pose that ez long ez you think there’s hope, a chancet o’ your comin’ out alive, you’ll carry me. Of course ye will,’ he sais. ‘Not till there’s not an ioty of a possibility o’ your doin’ me, will you let me finish you.’”
“Mighty souls, but that Si was an argyer, now wasn’t he!” the Miller interrupted.
“He’d ’a’ looked like small potatys ’long side o’ my Missus. I mind the time ’hen jest fer fun I——”