“Which way did they go?”
“Towards Paradise. Yuh never can tell which way he went after he got out of sight.”
“Any danged fool knows that,” agrees Magpie. “I reckon I better go after him.”
“I reckon yuh better had,” pants Art, and then lopes back up-town.
Magpie fusses around getting ready, oiling his guns and fixing a cinch on his saddle.
“You sure do go right after ’em, Magpie,” says I. “You ought to be called ‘Sudden’ Simpkins. Don’t let me hurry yuh. I’ll go away so yuh can oil your boots and shave. Haste makes waste, Magpie.”
I goes up-town, and she’s boiling. They’re organizing a posse to work independent of the sheriff’s office, but I don’t join. I got sweeter things to think of than killing or incarcerating my feller men. The little feller without no pants on, carrying a bow and arrer seems to beckon me.
I forks my bronc and rides north, lingering along, building air-castles and so forth. My bronc ain’t none too energetic, and we consumes plenty of time.
I dips into a cañon and rides up a cow trail, when a man with a pack-animile cuts my path, and I recognizes Magpie Simpkins. I keeps behind him, and pretty soon he gets off his bronc and seems to be picking up something off the ground. I rides up slow behind him, and rolls a smoke. The son-of-a-gun is so busy he don’t hear me until I clears my throat and then he whirls around with his hands full of flowers.
We looks at each other for half a minute, and then he grins, sort of foolish-like and holds out his hands: