“Mine too—thirteen,” says I, and just then we hears a faint voice saying:
“O-o-o-oh! O-o-o-oh!”
“Does your horse talk English, Ike?” whispers Dirty, and just then a dim figure reels up to us and sets down. It’s still got some rope around its neck. We peers at it, and then Dirty scratches a match. It’s Waldemar, wearing a half-inch rope for a necktie. He was the man I picked up on my way through the crowd.
“Waldemar,” says Dirty, “we welcome you to our graveyard.”
He wheezes for a moment and then manages to croak:
“Take that money back! Take it back!”
“Back to the bank,” he wheezes, when we don’t say anything. “They—they was hanging me, bub-because I—I told ’em it was just a picture stunt. Take the money back!”
“Way around ’em, Shep,” gasps Dirty. “We didn’t get no money. Dang it, there wasn’t anybody in the bank!”
“Don’t say that,” wails Waldemar. “I seen you. I got a hundred feet of the best hold-up on earth, and they were going to hang me.”
“But we didn’t rob the —— bank!” I yowls.