“Scientists is always welcome to my shack,” says Magpie. “I’ve got room.”
“We don’t wish to deprive yuh,” says Dirty.
“There ain’t no depravity about it,” says Magpie. “I hankers to talk with learned men, being as this is such a ignorant neighborhood, and you’re just as welcome as the flowers in January. What seek ye here?”
“I’m lookin’ for a dinny-sor,” says Dirty.
“Never heard of him,” says Magpie. “There used to be a Dinny McCall workin’ for the Five Dot outfit, down near Sulphur Flat.”
“This has been dead a million years,” explains Dirty.
“Oh,” says Magpie, fussing with his mustache. “Oh, yeah. That was before I came here. What killed him?”
“Wear and tear, I reckon,” says Dirty.
He takes me and Dirty down to his cabin, and makes us to home.
“I had a pardner once,” says Magpie, “but the —— fool went loco, and some law-abidin’ citizens chased him across the border.”