“The city limits of Piperock are the distance a sheriff can ride in two hours and then shoot with a .30-30; the same of which marks a spot several miles removed from the turmoil of town. Me and Ike are outside that distance and we stays out, eh, Ike?”
“You couldn’t ’a’ said more if yuh hired a hall,” says I. “Why does yuh wish to see the West in its raw state, mister?”
“I am a realist,” says he, dreamy-like. “I hate the artificial.”
“Gawd bless and keep yuh,” says Dirty. “You’ll find it there, but yuh may never return back. The sheriff sells cemetery space.”
He absorbs his liquor and seems a heap interested.
“Is there a bank there that might be robbed and does they have a stage that might have a reason for carrying bullion?”
“Now,” says Dirty, “me and Ike appears shocked at your question, but at the same time we’re a heap interested. Let’s go outside where there ain’t no walls to have ears and speak of such things as banks and stages. Yuh never can tell who might overhear us and suspect us of philanthropy.”
We goes across the street and sets down on the sidewalk.
“Now,” says Dirty, “there is a bank and there is a stage. Me and Ike are broke, but up to the present our records are as clean as our six-guns.”
“Would you know how to rob a bank or a stage?” he asks. “Do the job like it ought to be done?”