Me and Magpie nods and pilgrims on to our shack.
“Brotherly love seems to have come upon them,” says Magpie. “This town appears mild and full of loving thoughts. Next thing we know, Ike, these snake-hunters will be carrying autygraph albums and wish us to write—
If you love me as I love you
No knife can cut our love in two.
“And the bunk-house walls will be decorated with ‘Let Us Love Each Other’ mottoes. I wouldn’t be surprized to see ‘Hassayampa’ Harris kissing ‘Doughgod’ Smith.”
“That’s a fact,” I agrees. “She sure is a sweet-cider atmosphere. Next thing ye know they’ll be decorating horse-thieves’ graves. Do I seem to hear joy bells ringing, Magpie?”
“That’s ‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, I’ll bet a dobie dollar,” says Magpie. “One, two, three! Nope, he ain’t drunk yet, Ike.”
Magpie was counting the clangs of a bell. Dirty Shirt uses that bell as a barometer. It hangs on the corner of the Mint Hall, about sixty yards from the door of Buck’s place, and the bell is a little bigger than a cow-bell. Any time Dirty misses one out of three shots with his Colt he’s drunk enough to quit. As long as he can ring her three times in a row he keeps on until he can’t.
Me and Magpie don’t no more than get settled when here comes old Judge Steele. The old pelican is full of enthusiasm mixed with a certain percentage of alcohol and he welcomes us home again.
“You gents sure came back for the crowning e-vent of our lives,” says he. “We welcome you home and likely we can use you.”