“I think I’m goin’ to like Piperock,” says Waldemar.
“Your taste is all in your mouth, then,” says Dirty. “What are we supposed to be, in case anybody asks us?”
“You two?”
He thinks for quite a while, and then says:
“Tell you what—you two are scientists, looking for the remains of a—a dinosaur. Mister Jones will be Professor Doolittle and Mister Harper will be Professor Smythe. How’s that for names?”
“Lookin’ for a dinny-sor,” nods Dirty. “Might as well die for that as anything else, I reckon. Do we have to describe said—uh—thing? Is it a predatory animile, bird of prey or a crippled crawler?”
“The dinosaur,” says he, “died a million years ago.”
“Some fortune-teller likely told him what Piperock was goin’ to be like,” says Dirty.
We got off the train at Paradise, just in time to catch Art Miller’s stage to Piperock, and on that stage is “Magpie” Simpkins and Judge Steele. Magpie looks us over, careful-like and then shakes his head.