“Nope. Somebody ought to puncture that pair of Jaspers, Ike. I figure there’s only one critter what is meaner than Tombstone Todd, and there’s a bounty on his hide. I ain’t been drunk for six years, Ike, but when Tombstone Todd stops enough lead to make him a spirit I’m going to celebrate. When does Magpie aim to exterminate said human coyote?”
“Magpie suffers from softening of the heart,” says I “but him or Tombstone is due to hunt the hereafter right soon.”
I leaves there, and pilgrims down to the newspaper office, but I don’t walk right inside. Not me. The Harper tribe ain’t skittish of trouble, and my nose ain’t a stranger to powder smoke, but I’m cautious.
I Injuns up to the back window, flattens my carcass against the wall and peers inside. I ain’t taking no chances. Sabe? It’s a little too early to open up, and the sunshine is nice and warm. Everything is peaceful-looking around Piperock, so I sets down there on a box against the wall, and communes thusly:
“Ike Harper, you sure do live in the best little town on earth. Peaceful and quiet—no hurry or worry. Plenty of time to live and no questions asked. What if I am a editor? It sure is worth while to live simply and quietly in a community where brotherly love is the motto and where peace doves nest and suckle their young.”
Sudden-like I hears the dull rattle of many hoofs, and down the street comes a lot of men on hosses. They completes a picture of a peaceful Western village. There ain’t no boisterous or unseemly language as they ambles along through the dust—just the jingle of bit-chains and the squeak of saddles.
They don’t look like they was going far, ’cause they don’t seem to have no baggage. One of ’em is carrying a big bucket, and another seems to have a bundle in his arms.
They swings down towards me, but I merely yawns. They stops in front of my office, and dismounts. I reckon it’s my chore to go out and get ’em to subscribe, but I don’t do it. I got enough subscriptions. They must ’a’ thought the only way to get into a newspaper office was by main force, so they picks up a piece of lodge-pole, and knocks the door down.
Comes one shot—no more. Out of curiosity, more than anything else, I sort of leans forward on my box and takes note of what I can see. Out in front the crowd sort of surrounds somebody, what ain’t got no clothes on. I don’t hear much conversation what ain’t profane, and pretty soon I sees some feathers drift away on the breeze. Two broncs are linked together with that pole, a bundle what looks like a mighty buzzard is straddled the pole, and they all moves away as quietly as they came.
I watches ’em go away, and then I yawns some more and enters the sacred precincts of The Piperock Pilot. I hunts all over the place until I finds a can with a little ink left in it. I looks under the soap-box and finds that obituary. After considerable trouble I deciphers same, and this is it: