“Is Magpie still sheriff?” I asks.
“Uh-huh,” admits Tellurium, who ain’t friendly with Magpie. “Abe Anderson was running against him, and had a grand chance to win, but Abe’s old weakness crops up and spoils things.”
“Abe seen a chance to run off some Circle Star cows,” explains Buck. “He runs foul of Magpie and three of the Circle Star punchers, and when they gets through convincing him that, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ he ain’t in shape to use votes. Magpie races alone and is elected by five votes.”
“Well, well,” says I, “a few months sure does change the map. I’ll go down and see if that benighted son of a lodge-pole don’t need some help.”
I prods Lodestone down the street to where I sees a sign, which proclaims there’s a newspaper office. I hitches my rolling stock and goes inside. Magpie is there. All I can see is the bottom of his boots, the seat of his pants and his elbows—the rest of him is behind a newspaper, as he leans back in a chair, with his feet on the table.
I leans against the table and rolls a smoke. He glances at me, switches his cigaret over to the other side of his mouth, and goes on trying to read. I say “trying to read” for the reason that he’s got a paper he printed himself.
Pretty soon he yawns and lays the paper across his knees.
“Ike,” says he, “that’s some paper.”
“Some ink, too, if that’s anything to brag about,” I replies. “When did you learn to write Russian? Maybe it’s Chinook with the blind staggers, Magpie, but anyway she’s a terrible language. What does them big letters at the top proclaim?”
“That? Huh! The Piperock Pilot!”