“You still got it, ain’t yuh?” I asks.
“Uh-huh, I got her, Hen, but she almost met her Waterloo on a rock. Reckon it loosened all the nails. Shall we go back and smoke up that old coot?”
“Next Christmas,” replies Chuck. “That old coot has got a Sharps .45-70, and the Warners don’t care for that style of death. He’s crazy, Muley, and we’d put ourselves in his class if we went back.”
We lifts that box back on Muley’s saddle, and went on.
We hits the road, and makes good lime for a mile or two, when we meets Mighty Jones. He stops and we exchanges pleasantries. We comments on the weather, the crops—which theer ain’t none—and the general wear and tear on the human race. Muley switches the position of that box, and the next second we’re covered by Mighty Jones. I starts to grin, but when I sees that Mighty is in earnest I irons my face out flat again.
“Hands up!” he snaps, and Muley lets that box slip. She hits the ground and rolls over. I glances at Mighty, and he’s got the look on his face of a man who has seen all there is in life, but ain’t ready to go blind.
“My ——!” he gasps, whirls his bronc around and gallops off down the road like a crazy man, holding on to his hat with one hand and fanning his bronc with the other.
We watches him fade away in the dust, and puts our hands down.
“Of all the locoed actions on earth that’s the sharp end of the limit,” proclaims Muley, sliding off his bronc.
That last shock was almost too much for that box, ’cause when Muley essays to lift her she sort ’a’ opened on one end.