“And you ain’t hit him yet? Let me try just once, Yuma.”
“Half-Mile,” says Yuma, “these shepherds don’t know nothing. Let’s go home.”
We didn’t try to stop ’em. We punched our burros into line and at the main road we meets “Scenery” Sims. Scenery beat Magpie for the sheriff’s office, and this is the first time we’ve met him in his official capacity. He’s my idea of nothing to see nor hear, being as he never growed to man’s estate and his voice sounds like rubbing a tin can over a rock.
“He, he, he! Was afraid maybe you hadn’t heard about it,” he squeaks.
“Fill our ears, Scenery,” says Magpie, rolling a smoke.
“Biggest thing you ever heard about, Magpie. Believe me, I’m the party responsible for it all. Piperock needs you fellers.”
“That’s plenty for me,” says I. “I’m going back the other way. I’ve been butchered to make a Piperock holiday, and any old time that Piperock needs me, I’m absent.”
“Hear about it anyway, Ike,” urges Magpie. “Go ahead, Scenery.”
“Old Home Week,” grins Scenery. “What do you think?”
“Go ahead—we’ll bite,” says I.