“Miss Harrison was taken to Paradise this morning and was put aboard the train. Art Wheeler drove the stage, and Pete Gonyer, Judge Steele and Testament Tilton acted as shotgun guards. Our premier dancer has went.”
“Which busts up the show, eh?” says Dirty.
“Not while Magpie Simpkins roams the plains, it don’t. Piperock is goin’ to get a look at interpretive dancin’, y’betcha. How much civic pride has you two snake-hunters got?”
Me and Dirty don’t say a word, being as we don’t sabe his wau-wau. Then he hauls out a jug of pain-killer and we sets down to do homage.
After all danger from drought is a long time past, Magpie points out the duty of a real honest-to-grandma citizen. He orates openly that the future of a city is only as broad as the inhabitants will allow. He asks Dirty Shirt if his views are narrow.
“Wide as the ocean, and beggin’ to expand,” says Dirty.
“I’m the widest human bein’ yuh ever seen, Magpie. Dog-gone me if I ain’t wider than anythin’ anybody ever seen. How about you, Ike?”
“I’ve got you skinned about four ways from the jack,” says I, and somehow I believed it.
Magpie got in between us and took Dirty’s gun away from him.
“Killin’ ain’t expansion,” explains Magpie. “Piperock has entertained too many times in the interests of the undertaker. Piperock is so far behind the times that the seventeenth generation of Montana’s human race has started and finished and we’re still runnin’ the wrong way of the track.”