Spider studied it over a while. “Well, I’ll risk fifty,” he sez after a bit; so we went back to Eugene’s.
“Would you be willin’ to do a stunt to get back your tools?” sez I.
He raised a pair o’ weepy eyes to me an’ sez: “Aw, the’ ain’t no show. I’ve a good mind to kill myself.”
“Please don’t do that,” sez Spider, who never could stand a bad loser. “When you lose your money, you allus stand a chance to win more money; but when you lose your life, why, the’ ain’t nothin’ left except to go up an’ find out what reward it earned for you.”
“Aw hell,” muttered Eugene.
“Ye-es,” agreed Spider, talkin’ through his nose, like a missionary preacher, “I reckon that is about what you’d draw, if you was to cash in now; but if you stick around an’ do your duty, you run the risk o’ havin’ better luck later on.”
After Spider had insulted Eugene until he began to sass back a little, I broke in and sez that if Eugene will agree to do what I tell him, I’ll agree to get him back his outfit; so then he wants to know what I have in mind.
“Are you willin’ to disguise yourself as a genuwine mountain trapper?” sez I.
When I sez this, Spider exploded a laugh which would ’a’ hurt the feelin’s of a sheep, and Eugene tied into us as wordy as a fox terrier; but I soothed him down an’ told him I was in earnest. “I’m willin’ to do most anything to get my tools back,” sez Eugene; “but I don’t see how I can make myself look like a genuwine trapper.”
“Have you got any false wigs and beards?” sez I.