“And Maud S,” adds Dirty, sad-like.
“Oh,” says Chuck. “Oh, yeah. Well, mebbe you’ll get away with it.”
According to all we can find out, Christmas is the time of peace on earth and plenty of good-will to everybody. She’s a time when the lion and the lamb lies down together, and the cowpuncher forgets that there is such a thing as a sheep-herder. It’s a time when men’s hearts are filled with love toward their fellermen, and a six-shooter is only a ornament; a time, when you can say, “Yoo-hoo” to a horse-thief, without expecting to grab a harp the next minute.
“Yea, verily,” as Testament says. “It is a time when grown men become like little children. Yeah, that’s a fact—mentally. Piperock ain’t got any too much sense when she’s acting growed up; but right now—huh!”
There ain’t no reason why a lot of disreputable snake-hunters can’t spend their Christmas in Paradise or Curlew; but they don’t. Nope. They clutters up Piperock to partake of our good cheer. Me and Dirty looks over that aggregation of incompetents, and the sight drives all wisdom, peace and good will from our hearts.
“Big Foot” Forrest, “Cactus” Collins, “Mex” Mason, “Pole-Cat” Perkins, “Haw” Harris, et cettery, running the gamut of undesirable horse-thieves. “Hassayampa” Harris, who is a uncle of “Haw,” brings his bunch of hard-boiled punchers over from Curlew, and Mike Pelly heads the aggregation of incompetents from Paradise.
The Seven A, Triangle, Five Dot, Circle C and the Cross J all cometh to hive up in Piperock and partake of the Christmas cheer, and everything else that might come to pass. They’ve got the Mint Hall decorated for the occasion, and so forth. They built the stage out until she’s about twenty feet square, and about five feet high.
A couple of horse-thieves, who studied art in the penitentiary, painted the scenery. It’s canvas hung at the back of the stage, and they painted it black and put on a lot of white stars. Sticking in the middle of the canvas is kind of a lantern rigging, with a round glass in it and a lamp inside.
“That’s the moon,” explains Magpie. “When this is pulled off that will be the only visible light. Sabe? Desert, yuh understand? We’re goin’ to put some rocks and a bunch of cactus on the stage.”
“What do we do?” squeaks Scenery.