It’s the nut off a front wheel of that buckboard. I kicks it off into the brush, and rolls a smoke.
“Well,” says he, after a while, “you can give me credit for blocking the wheels of progress for a minute, can’t yuh? I’ll likely have to stand up all the way to town.”
“We’ll get plenty of time to rest,” says I.
We got to Paradise, but it wasn’t no pleasure-ride, and the first person we see is Mighty Jones.
Mighty seems to have drowned his feelings, and he’s spending his afternoon trying to hold up the hitch-rack. The old man goes in the saloon, but me and Chuck goes over to have a interview with our enemy. He nods at us like an owl.
“Tut-tut-tried to bub-blow me up,” he stutters, “Tha’s mean thing to-to-to do.”
“Tell us all about it, old-timer,” says Chuck, helping the old boy let loose of the rack, and leading him over to the sidewalk. “What’s all this dynamite stuff I’m hearing about?”
Mighty gets very deliberate in his language:
“Eighty pershent. Tha’s good powder. Sabe? Good powder but too ener-zhetic. Know what I mean? Mine’s eighty per shent. Stage runs away and sehtops at my place. I find box of shixty per shent. Sabe? Eighty too dangeroush to pack, so I exchanges. Sabe. Same price. Eighty per shent too easy on trigger. Know what I mean? Lissen; shomebody mus’ ’a’ stole that eighty from the stage, and I can’ fin’ mine. Sabe?”
“Think!” yelps Chuck. “Think where yuh put it, Mighty!”