“All right, I reckon. Big Medicine made him come in and go to bed. He’s had rheumatism pretty bad, and we came here to see if the springs would cure it, yuh see. He was almost cured today. Got peeved at a gaudy-lookin’ Mexican and throwed him into the slack tub in the blacksmith shop. Plumb forgot his limp.”
“Th’owed a gaudy-lookin’ Mex into a slack tub?” wondered Ike. “Had a little mustache, wore his hair long in front of his ears and dressed like a tin-horn gambler?”
“That’s the curio,” nodded Sleepy. “Wore a red sash instead of a belt.”
“Pete Torres, as sure as the Devil made little apples. Th’owed him into a tub of dirty water! What did Pete do?”
“He damn near drowned. When we rode away he was braced ag’in’ the forge, drippin’ rusty water. I’ll tell a man, he wasn’t noways gaudy then.”
“Aw, gosh, that sounds too good to be true. I’d give half of my life to ’a’ seen it done. Now listen: Tell yore pardner to look out for Torres. He’s a bad hombre. What he don’t know about th’owin’ a knife ain’t to be learned. Why, that son of a gun could pin yore ears to the wall plumb across a room, and he’s no slouch with a gun.
“And he’s got a pardner named Garcia, half-Mex, half-Apache. If Torres asked Garcia to kill somebody, Garcia’d do it. He ain’t got brains enough to see farther than the killin’. It won’t be a even break, and yuh can bet on that.”
“We’re much obliged,” said Sleepy sincerely. “Hashknife Hartley don’t ask for a even break. That’s my pardner’s name. Mine’s Sleepy Stevens.”
“Mine’s Ike Marsh.”
They shook hands solemnly.