“You fellers keep this under your hats. Sabe? Along about Wednesday afternoon I’m going to hold up the stage from Piperock. Of course after it’s over I’ll return everything, and all the while this picture will be taken. He wants to advertise it as a real hold-up, and she will be all that.”
“Going south, as she drags out of Hell Gate Crossing,” orates Chuck.
“That’s the designated place,” grins Telescope. “You must ’a’ been studying the situation, Chuck.”
“Suppose somebody takes a shot at yuh?” I suggests. “Art Miller ain’t no suckling infant, and if there’s a shipment from the Golden Cross aboard there might be a guard.”
“Yuh never can tell about them shipments,” agrees Chuck. “I’ve tried several times to find out.”
“No wonder yuh know a good place,” laughs Telescope. “Never mind, there ain’t going to be no shooting. I’ll have ’em buffaloed. My shells will all be blanks. If I makes good in this I cinches a job with Archibald Ames, and it’s good-by to the Cross J. No more will Mister Tolliver ride the hills and smell of burnt hair and corrals. Poor, eh? I’ll be eating breakfast in bed while Chuck Warner is out chopping holes in the ice so the doggies can drink.”
“A little more such talk and yuh won’t have to be a actor to get breakfast in bed,” states Chuck. “Keep it up, and you’ll have all your meals in bed. If you wants to hear me say what I think about you being a actor you got to come outside. I got too much respect for the bunk-house to express myself here.”
This day being Monday, we has to put up with that kind of conversation until Tuesday afternoon, when Chuck opines that he’s going up to Piperock. Chuck can’t stand prosperity, and Tuesday is payday. He’s a roulette fiend, and he runs into bad luck every time he bucks a wheel in Paradise, so he wearies his bronc with monthly trips to Piperock. Once he won eight dollars up there. It cost him forty but he never figured that side of the ledger.
Anyway we wishes him many happy returns of the day, and he lopes away. As he forks his bronc he grins at Telescope, and says:
“To be a good actor, yuh got to imagine you’re the party you’re imitating. Just think you’re ‘Slippery’ Silverton, Telescope. He’s a good pattern to go by. Sabe?”