“Say, professor, when did you take a job driving a sheep-wagon?” asked Dirty Shirt.
“Middleton was driving,” I whispered. My voice was strangely weak.
“Well—” Dirty Shirt scratched his head and peered across the hills—“well, as a driver he’s got more intestines than judgment. He sure is the short-cut kid.”
After a while Middleton sat up and essayed a grin. Several of his front teeth were missing, which gave him a leering look. The wagon had smashed to kindling-wood, but they told us that the team escaped serious injury. Dirty Shirt and Ike told us to take it easy while they rounded up the team, which we tried to do.
My gun was in the wreckage, but beyond a deep dent in the barrel it was in very good shape. There were still four cartridges in it, and I managed to manipulate one into the firing-chamber. It is well to be prepared.
Middleton had acquired a pronounced lisp, caused, no doubt, by the missing teeth. Suddenly we saw a man on horseback coming down toward us. Ordinarily I would have paid little heed to him, but we were becoming chary of strangers. I stood up and threw my gun to my shoulder.
“What in —— is the idea?” he asked, halting. “Put down that gun!”
“Thoot him!” lisped Middleton. “Thoot him if he cometh too cloth.”
“Have a little sense and put down that gun,” said the man.
“Don’t let him ditharm your thuth-pithions,” warned Middleton.