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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #66832 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66832)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tied Up for Tombstone, by W. C. Tuttle
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Tied Up for Tombstone
-
-Author: W. C. Tuttle
-
-Release Date: November 27, 2021 [eBook #66832]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE ***
-
-
-
-
-                        TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE
-
-                           by W. C. Tuttle
-
-       Author of “Loco or Love,” “Making Good for Muley,” etc.
-
-
-“Lodestone, you flea-bitten, long-eared ancestor of a jack-rabbit,
-take a look at the best place the Lord ever made, and rejoice with
-me.”
-
-Lodestone wiggles his ears, kicks at a hoss-fly, narrowly missing my
-head, and looks with sad eyes down at the city of Piperock. Then he
-goes to sleep. Which shows that a burro ain’t got no finer feelings.
-
-We been away for quite a while—me and Lodestone. We pilgrims up the
-Bitter Root range to where old Blue Nose sticks into the clouds,
-crosses over and pilgrims back the other side, all of which takes up
-several months, and don’t net me nothing but blisters and blasphemy.
-
-I misses “Magpie” Simpkins a heap, and I welcomes the day when I can
-shake the hand of that long, loose-jointed hombre. Magpie is one of
-the leading citizens of Piperock, and until a few months ago, my
-pardner.
-
-When I left to make my fortune he was setting there in his
-office—Magpie is the sheriff—and wondering how he can square things
-with the populace to get reelected.
-
-He’s of the lodge-pole type, and wears a goodly length of hair on his
-upper lip. He pleads with me not to leave him but for once in my life
-I turns a deaf ear to his siren voice, and herds my burro out of
-hearing.
-
-Piperock ain’t what a stranger would call a paradise on earth, and she
-don’t qualify for the milk and honey, but she’s a man’s town—all up
-and down the street.
-
-Me and Lodestone pilgrims through the dust up to “Buck” Masterson’s
-saloon, and I goes inside. Buck and “Tellurium” are there, and they
-welcomes me like a lost brother. Buck salutes me with the proper
-ingredients, and we exchanges pleasantries.
-
-After we sort of gets used to each other again Buck hauls out a sheet
-of paper, and smooths it out on the bar.
-
-“Take a look at that, Ike,” says he. “There’s something new.”
-
-I sizes her up. It’s what resembles a newspaper—in some respects—but I
-can’t seem to read it none to speak of. The label across the top
-resembles this—
-
-                          TOLIP KCOREPIP EHT
-
-The rest of the page is smears and blots.
-
-“Looks like a Russian proclamation, Buck,” says I. “Where did it come
-from?”
-
-“Right here, Ike; that ex-pardner of yours published it.”
-
-“Magpie?” I asks, and they both nods. “That’s his first edition,”
-replies Buck. “He took over the office when a few of the local boys
-ran the editor across the border for slandering the community. That
-paper invades this here country about a month after you leaves, and
-she runs high along until the editor gets a call to uplift the
-community. Yesterday he beat the posse across the line, and Magpie
-gets out his maiden sheet. This here feller speaks feelingly of
-lawlessness, and even goes so far as to make personal remarks about
-our morals. What he said about the town of Paradise was awful.”
-
-“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_!”
-
-“Won’t the letters run the other way, Magpie?”
-
-“I reckon they would, Ike, but how in —— am I going to know what she
-reads? It’s a danged sight easier for the public to read the print
-backwards than it is for me to read the type thataway. I’m glad to see
-yuh, Ike.”
-
-“Still follering the line of least resistance, eh, Magpie? I’m glad to
-see you, too.”
-
-“Accumulate anything on your trip, Ike?”
-
-“Wood-ticks, fool-hens and a growing conviction that rich rock is
-scarce. How’s things at the sheriff’s office?”
-
-“Tolable, Ike. Won by a narrow majority. I reckon if Abe had ’a’ lived
-we’d needed a recount. Lot of folks voted for him after he was dead.”
-
-“They would,” I agrees. “Lot of folks around here ain’t got no more
-ambition than to vote for a corpse. How comes it you’re a editor? Has
-all the bad-men died off or has a moral wave hit Piperock?”
-
-“I always been a critter of circumstance, Ike,” he states, unfolding
-his long legs, and easing his gun handy-like. “I always been a
-disciple of advance, and I’ve worn all the skin off my shoulder trying
-to give the wheels of progress a lift. At times them wheels have
-slipped and sprained my immediate future, but I never peeped.
-
-“When this here misguided editor fades across the horizon, me, being
-sheriff, appropriates this here plant and opines to run it as a public
-institution. There’s twenty-five sheets of paper left and one can of
-ink. My first edition takes twelve sheets, and I hereby claims that a
-man, without no experience, what can rise to the occasion and put out
-a paper like that is a credit to the community.”
-
-“Didn’t you have trouble finding all them letters, Magpie?”
-
-“Trouble? Say, the ends of my fingers are so tender I can hold out my
-hands and feel the sun slide behind the hills. The next publication is
-problematical, Ike. I’m short of material, but I only figures on one
-more issue. I got a article set up, and I can’t publish until the time
-is ripe.”
-
-“Something special?”
-
-“Uh-huh. ‘Tombstone’ Todd’s obituary.”
-
-“From Wilier Crick?” I asks, and Magpie nods.
-
-“Uh-huh. Him and ‘Cactus’ Collins comes over here to help elect Abe
-Anderson, being as Abe was a relative. When Abe departs this here vale
-of tears they up and proclaims they’re a pair of howling wolves, and
-that they’re a permanent fixture around here until such a time as they
-lays me on my back and gestures over me with a spade. Awful pair of
-gobblers, Ike.”
-
-“Why not an obituary for Cactus, too, Magpie?”
-
-“He’s hiding out until such a time as his stummick is normal, Ike. He
-horns in on me yesterday, and gets pessimistic to my face. I’m busy on
-that obituary and don’t like to be interrupted, so I beats him on the
-draw, accepts his gun as a subscription and induces him to eat a
-bucket of paste. Awful smelling mess, Ike. I’d opine that as far as my
-future horoscope is concerned his lips are sealed.”
-
-“Thirteen sheets and one obituary will be something to print,” says I.
-“Has Tombstone made any advances?”
-
-“Once. I was standing over there by the window, holding up one of them
-dinguses what contains type, when a bullet comes along and hits her
-plumb center. She collapses right there and ruins things. Some of that
-lead type enters my bosom, and for the space of a foot square on my
-manly chest I looks like a smallpox patient. This idea of being a man
-of letters ain’t no prosaic pastime, Ike.”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-Just then “Scenery” Sims darkens our doorway. Scenery is knee-high to
-a short Injun, and his voice hankers for oil. He looks mean-like at me
-and Magpie, and chaws some industrious. Pretty soon he expectorates
-copiously on the floor, and orates—
-
-“Want to quit taking the paper.”
-
-Magpie snaps out his gun and covers Scenery.
-
-“Get down on your knees and wipe out that —— spot!” snorts Magpie.
-“What do yuh think this is—a corral?”
-
-“I—uh—” begins Scenery, but the gun don’t waver, so he takes the
-handkerchief off his neck, and scrubs our floor.
-
-“This is a newspaper office, Scenery,” states Magpie. “You can’t start
-your oration with a cloud-burst in here. Sabe? What you got against
-the paper, and why for don’t yuh wish it no more?”
-
-“I can’t read her,” he squeaks. “She’s too backward to suit me. Of
-course I—uh—well, send her along, and I’ll—uh—do the best I can. I got
-to go now.”
-
-He slips out with his hat in his hand, and lopes off up the street.
-
-“That’s business, Ike,” laughs Magpie. “I’m going to make ’em like
-it.”
-
-“When yuh had the drop on him yuh ought to ’a ’collected in advance
-for another year,” says I. “You sure need a manager, Magpie, for _The
-Piperock Pilot, Limited_—to thirteen sheets and a death notice.”
-
-“Howdy, gents,” states a voice at the door. “Is this the only
-newspaper in town?”
-
-That person is a novelty in cowland. He stands there, exuding perfume
-and prosperity from his Sunday clothes. We looks him over, from his
-shiny shoes to his hard hat, wonders at his pink cheeks, which match
-his necktie, and both nods.
-
-“You answers your own question, stranger,” states Magpie. “We sure got
-a monopoly on all news hereabouts. Want to subscribe?”
-
-He ambles over and sets down on a stool and looks the place over. He
-takes off his hat, balances it on his knee, and produces some sheets
-of paper.
-
-“What’s your amusement rates?” he asks. “Half-page—maybe full.”
-
-Magpie rolls a fresh smoke and studies the feller.
-
-“Well,” he drawls, “the person who operates here ahead of me makes a
-fixed price of three dollars for six months, but I don’t sabe no case
-in which he split the size. I don’t guarantee to amuse nobody. I’ll be
-honest with yuh, though. This here paper is on its last legs, but I’ll
-danged near guarantee one more issue, and if yuh hankers for it I’ll
-put yuh down for one copy at four-bits.”
-
-“You misunderstood me,” he grins, “I mean advertising rates. I’m ahead
-of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”
-
-He puts his hat back on his head, and shuffles them sheets of paper:
-
-“We are bringing to your town the greatest aggregation of stars that
-ever glowed over one set of footlights. Two _Evas_, two _Topsies_,
-three fee-rocious bloodhounds and eight—”
-
-_Splang!_
-
-The side window spills its panes over the place, and this person’s hat
-flips off his head, and lands in my lap, while a chunk of lead bores a
-neat hole in the wall behind the stranger. He freezes right there.
-
-Magpie slips his gun across his lap, settles down a little lower in
-his chair, and lights his cigaret. I hands the hat back to its owner,
-and slides my chair a few inches further back.
-
-“Eight what?” asks Magpie.
-
-“Ca-ca-cakes of ice,” he quavers, examining his hat. “My ——! Was that
-a—a—bullet?”
-
-Magpie nods and scratches his chin.
-
-“Bullet?” he wonders again. “Did—did somebody shoot at me?”
-
-“Nope,” says Magpie. “At me. What yuh going to do with the ice?”
-
-He looks at Magpie for a minute, and then gasps—
-
-“At a—a time like this?”
-
-He tucks his hat under his arm, sneaks to the door, and goes around
-the corner so fast his coat simply cracks.
-
-Magpie slips his gun loose and spins the cylinder, hitches up his belt
-and yawns:
-
-“Ike, I ain’t got nothing to prove who it was but I has the feeling
-that Tombstone is going too danged far. There’s such a thing as
-personal animosity, but when yuh bust into a man’s business and cause
-him financial loss it’s time to start a probe. That show person was
-about to help us pay our overhead expenses, but now he’s gone gun-shy.
-
-“I hereby deputizes you to operate this here plant, while I fulfils
-the obligations of my oath concerning public nuisances. You got plenty
-of ammunition, Ike?”
-
-“I ain’t no editor, Magpie,” I objects. “I can’t even sign my own name
-so folks can read it.”
-
-“Sign mine,” says he. “You’re editor _pro tempore_. Sabe?” And then he
-slips out of the door.
-
-I looks around, casual-like, places my .41 beside me on a chair, and
-sets down out of line with any window or door. It’s warm in there, and
-there’s a funny smell about the place. I had several scoops of gall
-and wormwood in Buck’s place, and the combination woos sleep in
-copious gobs. My sombrero slips over my face, and I sleep.
-
-Sudden-like I wakes, and believe me she’s a rude awakening. Somebody
-kicks the chair out from under me, and proceeds to knead my abdomen
-with their knees, toes, fingers, thumbs and head. When that part is
-over they turns me on my face and rakes me fore and aft with a pair of
-long-roweled spurs, while they links their hands in my hair and
-hammers my forehead on the floor. When I ain’t got more than a glimmer
-of light left in my system they seems to draw aside and rest.
-
-“There!” I hears a voice state. “Next time yuh prints your danged
-newspaper you’ll please leave my name out. Sabe? I ain’t no shepherd,
-and my shirt is as clean as yours!”
-
-“‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, you’re an assassin,” says I, weak-like.
-
-He pulls my hat off the bridge of my nose and takes a look at me.
-
-“Ike, I’m glad to see yuh back,” says he. “When did yuh get back?”
-
-“Today. Are you the reception committee?”
-
-“Me? Nope. I’m an enraged citizen, Ike. I mistook yuh for the editor.”
-
-“No mistake, Dirty, I’m him.”
-
-Of course I got that .41 in my hands when I makes that statement, and
-Dirty don’t make no demonstration.
-
-“Take it easy,” I advises. “I ain’t the one you’re sore at. Magpie is
-the regular editor but he’s down at the jail.”
-
-Dirty chaws for a few seconds, and hitches up his pants:
-
-“Much obliged, Ike. Sorry I licked yuh thataway. Yuh see that paper
-orates that the population ought to get sanitary—whatever that is. He
-states that a dirty shirt designates a shepherd—dang his hide! Well,
-Ike, I gives yuh good afternoon.”
-
-“Good afternoon ain’t much to give a man after you’ve give him ——,” I
-opines. “But I’ll take it, Dirty, old-timer. I reckon I’ll need
-everything I can get before I goes to press.”
-
-I sets there and complains bitterly to myself about folks who don’t
-keep up to date on news, wipes the worst of the ink off my face, and
-goes back to sleep.
-
-“Slim” Hawkins woke me up. Slim would make a good running-mate for
-Magpie. He’s built in the same proportions. He’s had a few drinks, and
-is as serious as a owl.
-
-“Ike,” says he, “take a look at my eyes and see if they’re all right.”
-
-“Little off color but pointing straight, Slim. What’s wrong?”
-
-“Somebody drops a paper at the ranch today, and when I tries to peruse
-same I finds that I’m left-handed and cross-eyed. I’ve suffered a
-heap, Ike, and while I hopes for the best I fears the worst. I’d hate
-to go around looking at things backwards thataway. Might as well learn
-to read Chinese. Where’s the educated party what operates this here
-newspaper?”
-
-“He’s—” I begins, but an apparition which I deciphers to be Dirty
-Shirt, comes in the door.
-
-He seems to have met disaster. His hair has been pawed down over a
-pair of black eyes, and over his head and under one arm hangs what is
-left of a framed map of Montana, which adorned Magpie’s office.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-He feels painfully in his pockets, takes out three silver dollars, and
-lays ’em on the table.
-
-“Dirty Shirt Jones—three months,” he states, slow and sad-like.
-
-“Your subscription expired?” I asks, and he nods.
-
-“Uh-huh. I reckon. Everything else has.”
-
-“Better take back some of it,” I advises. “This here paper is about to
-cease. One more effort cleans the rack.”
-
-“I know,” nods Dirty Shirt. “Keep the money and send me a copy. If
-Magpie can edit like he can fight I’ll covet that copy.”
-
-“Keep that frame to put it in,” says I. “You met the editor, did yuh?”
-
-Dirty squints at me, adjusts that frame to a easier position, and rubs
-his sore eyes.
-
-“Met him!” he snorts. “Met ——! We mingled!”
-
-Dirty weaves out of the door and points up the street. Slim looks at
-them three dollars and then lays three more beside ’em.
-
-“I don’t sabe the game, Ike, but I’m matching Dirty’s ante. I don’t
-know what Magpie’s argument is, but anybody what can make Dirty Shirt
-pay three dollars for a left-handed newspaper must have something
-besides conversation.”
-
-“But Dirty Shirt was sore,” says I. “He came down to lick the editor.”
-
-“Me, too, Ike. I came with malice in my heart but I goes away plumb
-meek. Dirty Shirt licked thunder out of me once, so I’m three dollars
-thankful that he met Magpie first. Have a little drink?”
-
-“That’s the first United States I’ve heard spoken since I got home,”
-says I. “But I can’t leave the office alone. You go up and have one,
-and then play editor while I goes up. Sabe?”
-
-Slim comes back in a few minutes, and holds down the place while I
-pilgrims up to Buck’s place. Me and Buck and “Half-Mile” Smith leans
-on the door and discusses local conditions.
-
-“Show troupe in town,” states Half-Mile. “Came in on the stage. Seven
-or eight people, two colored persons and some dogs. They got a drum
-and a lot of horns, etcetery. I’d opine we’ll have some music.”
-
-“I love a good show,” says Buck. “The last good one I seen was at
-Silver Bend. They played Shakespeare. Had a ghost and I was just drunk
-enough to enjoy it.”
-
-“Give me a drink, quick!” pants a voice at the door, and into the
-place comes “Ricky” Henderson. He takes a long drink out of the
-bottle, and leans against the bar.
-
-“Suffering surcingles!” he pants. “I’ve sure had one job! That or’nary
-hombre, Tombstone Todd, comes into my place a while ago, and climbs
-into a chair.
-
-“‘Young feller,’ says he, ‘my hair and whiskers are too noticeable, so
-I admires to see ’em on the floor.’ He hauls out a six-gun, lays it
-across his lap, and leans back in the chair. ‘Young feller,’ says he
-again, ‘a razor what pulls is an abomination and a barber what uses
-one is flirting with the undertaker. Let your judgment be your
-guide.’”
-
-“Was he satisfied?” asks Buck.
-
-“I’m here, ain’t I?” grins Ricky. “But I wouldn’t do it again for a
-million dollars.”
-
-“And you with a razor in your hand all this time, and his head tilted
-back?” wonders Half-Mile, aloud.
-
-Ricky stares at Half-Mile and considers the remark.
-
-“I seen a colored brother with a razor once—” began Half-Mile, but he
-happens to glance towards the door.
-
-We all takes a look.
-
-“Speak of the devil and—” murmurs Buck, but the colored person at the
-door bursts into profanity that would shame a professor from a mule
-college.
-
-“Why didn’t yuh come back, Ike?” he wails. “Sus-somebody sneaked in,
-hit me over the head, dud-dragged me into the back room and poured a
-can of ink all over me! My ——! It won’t never come off! He said he
-wanted to make me eat some paste, but he couldn’t find it. Look at me!
-All inked to ——!”
-
-“Gosh!” exclaims Magpie from the doorway. “Ain’t that too danged bad!
-That’s the only can of ink there was left.”
-
-“Too bad, eh?” howls Slim. “I wish I knowed the name of that hombre.”
-
-“Did he speak feelingly of paste?” asks Magpie.
-
-“Uh-huh,” agrees Slim, drawing figures on the bar with his inky
-finger. “He sort of choked over the word. He ——”
-
-“Hey! Sam!” yells a voice at the door, and we observes a stranger in
-our midst.
-
-It’s sort of dark inside, but he seems to know what he wants. He
-ambles straight up to Slim, and grabs him by the arm.
-
-“You slew-footed, wobble-jointed son of a cannibal!” he yelps.
-“Where’s them pink silk underclothes of mine, eh?”
-
-Slim Hawkins is slow to anger, but when he does get to going he’s hard
-to stop. He climbs under and over and through this stranger like he
-was searching for something, and when he gets through this feller
-ain’t got nothing on but a look of wonderment and one sleeve of his
-undershirt. Slim looks over the pile of clothes on the floor, and
-shakes his head.
-
-“I can’t find ’em,” he states, serious-like. “Furthermore I don’t
-admire to be called a son of a cannibal, Mister Man!”
-
-The feller braces his hands behind him on the floor, and shakes his
-head like he was trying to collect his thoughts. He squints at Slim,
-and then explodes:
-
-“My ——! You ain’t Sam!”
-
-“A slight inquiry would have saved us all this search,” says Slim.
-“Who is Sam?”
-
-“One of my company—my _Uncle Tom_.”
-
-“So?” drawled Slim. “You with this here ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ outfit?”
-
-“Yes,” says he. “I’m _Simon Legree_.”
-
-“So?”
-
-Slim picks the gent up by one leg and an arm, carries him out and
-dumps him right into the street without no clothes on.
-
-“There!” yells Slim, as the stranger hits the dirt. “I’ve read all
-about yuh, Mister Legree, and this is one colored person yuh can’t run
-no sandy on. Sabe?”
-
-This Legree person don’t linger. It’s about two hundred yards to
-Holt’s hotel door, and he negotiates the distance in the time it takes
-Slim to shoot six shots into the dirt behind him. On his way he meets
-“Cobalt” Williams. Cobalt steps to one side to let him past, catches
-his spur in the dirt, and sets down. It spoils his aim, he tears the
-knob off the door after it shuts behind Legree. Cobalt gets up and
-comes on down to the saloon, shaking his head.
-
-“What yuh trying to do—kill him? Yuh danged fool!” snorts Slim.
-
-Cobalt had reached for the bottle, but he turns to look at Slim and
-his hand drops. He pushes his hat back and stares at Slim and seems to
-swaller with difficulty.
-
-“Ex-cuse me,” he says, sort of to himself. “No more Paradise hooch for
-mine! Mike Pelly said it was a hundred and twenty proof, and this
-proves it. First I see a naked man running around the main street, and
-then I meets a colored brother what looks like Slim Hawkins. I’m
-through! Sabe? I’m going home—me!”
-
-He ducks out, gets his bronc at the rack and points out of town.
-
-“That’s what I’d call a temperance lecture in ink,” opines Magpie. “As
-editor and a man of letters I congratulates yuh. We can hereby reverse
-that old saying, ‘He who runs may read’ and make it, ‘He who reads may
-run.’”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-We inaugurates a poker game and plays until almost dark, when
-sudden-like we hears the sound of music, and stampedes to the door.
-Here comes that show bunch down the street, and stops in front of the
-old Mint Hall. They got a banner what proclaims there will be a show
-tonight, and “Mighty” Jones is packing the banner, with his chest
-stuck out like a fool-hen after a feed.
-
-We cashes in and goes over to the band.
-
-“When did you start to be a actor, Mighty?” asks Magpie, but the
-feller what Slim took apart steps between Magpie and Mighty and peers
-at Magpie’s star.
-
-“Pardon me,” says he, “I see you’re the sheriff.”
-
-“You’re pardoned, and I congratulates yuh on your eyesight,” replies
-Magpie.
-
-“I’ve lost my dogs,” says he. “Somebody must ’a’ stole ’em.”
-
-By this time most everybody in Piperock has congregated around. Music
-sure is a magnet for folks and dogs.
-
-“Pick out what yuh want,” says Magpie, indicating any amount of
-canines, circling around through people’s legs. “Losing a few dogs
-ain’t no disaster around here.”
-
-“Mine are valuable dogs,” states Legree, in a loud tone. “Trained
-dogs. Our show can’t proceed without them dogs.”
-
-“Name, age and description,” says Magpie, hauling out a little
-note-book. “Also any distinguishing marks and brands.”
-
-“One bloodhound, crossed with St. Bernard and collie; color, yaller;
-named Violet.”
-
-“_War-hoo-o-o-o!_” howls a dog up the street.
-
-“_Yeo-o-o-o-ow!_” yells somebody. “Look out!”
-
-There’s a sudden movement at the far end of the congregation. I sees a
-bronc turn a handspring, a pair of cream-colored broncs leaves their
-halters at the hitch-rack, while they comes over to visit us, and
-Violet is no longer a lost dog.
-
-Violet is about the size of a he-wolf, and she seems to think she can
-outrun the string of tomato cans which are tied to her tail. She goes
-through, under and over that crowd, and what she don’t do to us is
-left for that pair of broncs and the buckboard. A million dog-fights
-start right there.
-
-Me and _Legree_ are close together and the confusion seems to bring us
-close to each other. We hits the sidewalk together and I’m underneath.
-A couple of rotten boards break, and yours truly disappears.
-
-When I recovers sufficient-like to peek out it’s about all over. Every
-bronc that was tied to the rack is gone, and part of one rack is
-missing. Most of the crowd is on the far side of the street, but our
-side is still well represented. Two local dogs are still hauling at
-each other.
-
-Dirty Shirt Jones’ head protrudes from the side of that big drum, and
-his right arm is wedged straight up, making him look like a drowning
-man what is going down for the last time.
-
-Mighty Jones has got one boot through the mechanical end of a big
-brass horn, while from inside the other boot protrudes that banner,
-with the proclamation missing.
-
-Magpie is lying near me, with both feet through Wick Smith’s picket
-fence, and he’s still studying that little note-book.
-
-“Was that last one Lucy or Hannibal?” he asks, slow and deliberate.
-
-“It—it don’t make no matter,” says a weak voice, “they’re all gone
-past anyway,” and the man who got his hat punctured in the newspaper
-office rises up from behind the fence, and tugs at the brim of his
-hat, which is hanging around his neck.
-
-I goes out and helps to cut Dirty Shirt loose from the drum, when up
-comes one of Holt’s kids.
-
-“Mister,” says he to the show feller, “I seen a man tie them cans on
-your dogs.”
-
-“Give the sheriff a description of him,” says he, excited-like. “I
-offers ten dollars reward for the conviction of the persons connected
-with the dastardly outrage.”
-
-“Cheap enough,” agrees Magpie. “Did he have a long mustache and long
-hair?”
-
-“Naw. He didn’t have no hair on his face a-tall,” replies the kid.
-
-“Must a been an outside job,” proclaims Magpie. “All the men in
-Piperock wear hair on their faces, except Slim Hawkins, and he wears
-ink.”
-
-Me and Magpie pilgrims home and uses up a bottle of hoss liniment.
-
-“When yuh going to get that Tombstone person?” I asks, after we
-finishes our supper. “There ain’t no sense in leaving a critter like
-him loose, Magpie.”
-
-“He’s a ornery hombre all right, all right,” agrees Magpie. “He ain’t
-so dangerous as he is plumb mean, Ike. He’s shot at me several times,
-but as he ain’t hit me yet I reckon he’s trying to scare me. Must ’a’
-been Cactus what painted Slim with the ink. Me and Slim are the same
-build.
-
-“I sure wish that Tombstone could live long enough to read his
-obituary, Ike. She’s a bird. I sure dug deep into my soul for that
-stuff, and I surprises myself with what I writes. Them two is sore
-over the election. They opined to be deputies under Anderson.”
-
-“That paper must ’a’ printed some truths about folks,” I opines, and
-Magpie grins:
-
-“You said something, Ike. He sure did ride folks. Yuh ought to see
-what he said about Paradise folks. I reckon they’re just about
-starting to boil over down there.”
-
-“Didn’t you print yours right soon, Magpie?” I asks. “Seems to me that
-it’s a weekly.”
-
-“Uh-huh—comes out on Friday. Yuh see I had to change that day right
-off the reel, ’cause if I had any hangings to attend to it would
-interfere with the paper. I looks into the future, Ike.”
-
-“Well,” says I, “it don’t make much difference now, being as the ink
-is all gone.”
-
-“That’s so. I wish you’d ’a’ stayed there and ’tended to business,
-Ike.”
-
-“And got all inked up, eh? I never did have any luck, and if it had
-’a’ been me somebody would ’a’ come in and helped Cactus find that
-paste jar. Too bad the show got busted up thataway.”
-
-“Uh-huh,” yawns Magpie. “We ain’t had a good show for a long time, but
-I don’t admire a show what depends on three dogs and eight cakes of
-ice. Let’s hit the hay.”
-
-That night somebody comes down and paints a skull and cross bones on
-our door, and it makes Magpie sore.
-
-“I’m commencing to get riled internally, Ike,” he states, when he
-views said works of art. “You go back and hold down the newspaper, and
-in a little while I’ll show yuh the scalp of this artist. Rustle
-around and see if there’s any ink left.
-
-“I got that obituary all fixed up left-handed, and she’s cached under
-a soap-box behind the printing machine. Don’t jiggle it ’cause she’s
-fragile as ——! I left that page just like she was for the other paper,
-but I got a place in it what fits this here masterpiece of mine. If
-Tombstone should make a mistake and hit me yuh won’t need the
-obituary. Sabe?”
-
-“Uh-huh, I’ll just run the rest, Magpie. It looks like a bundle o’
-crape anyway.”
-
-“And Ike,” he reminds me, as I buckles on my gun, “yuh take that type
-stuff and put it inside the press. Sabe? Then yuh take that roller
-thing and pour on some ink, roll her over the letters, slap on a sheet
-of paper and twist that handle down hard.”
-
-“You furnish the news, Magpie,” says I. “I’ll hold the wheels of
-progress for Tombstone Todd.”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-I goes up to Buck’s place, and settles some elixir under my belt,
-while me and Buck talks over the humdrum existence we’re leading.
-
-“Dirty Shirt is still going around with his right hand up in the air,”
-laughs Buck. “Reckon he’s flagged every one in sight.”
-
-“How’s the show outfit?” I asks.
-
-“Right miserable, I reckon. All of ’em except one left on the stage
-this morning. That exception—a colored person—mistakes Slim for a
-blood-brother, and being as Slim ain’t back yet, I’d say they went
-quite a ways. I never seen fast black fade the way that person did.
-
-“That other colored member didn’t have much to say this morning. He
-was packing one of them slide horns in the band last night, and when
-the buckboard hit him he sails right into Pete Gonyer. Him and Pete
-holds about even until Pete gets his hands loose, and then he winds
-that horn around the feller’s neck so many times that we has to lay
-that colored gent across an anvil and cut it loose with a
-cold-chisel.”
-
-“Seen anything of Tombstone Todd or Cactus Collins?” I asks, but Buck
-says:
-
-“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:
-
-                         EPITAPH ON TOMBSTONE
-
-         He was a bad man from Willer Crick.
-         His bluff was good but it didn’t stick.
-         He shot at the sheriff till the sheriff got sore,
-         Now his boots leave tracks on that beautiful shore.
-
-I wipes the tears off my cheeks when I reads it. Magpie said he had
-put his soul into it, but I never knowed before how deep Magpie’s soul
-really was. It’s a hy-iu composition, but I got a better idea. I takes
-it over to where them lead letters repose, and reconstructs the thing
-a bit.
-
-I ain’t no poet, but in a time like this a man’s spirit guides his
-fingers. I works for an hour, trying to make the blamed things stand
-up long enough to be read backwards, and I’m sore enough to kick a
-baby when Magpie shows up. He looks at me and grins, when he sees what
-I’m doing, and rolls a smoke.
-
-“One of ’em has left, Ike,” he states. “Hank Padden rode in a while
-ago, and said he met Cactus Collins on his way to Willer Crick. I’ll
-get Tombstone before night. Sabe?”
-
-“Them is noble resolutions, Magpie. You know how to make this stuff
-stand up while she leaves her message on paper?”
-
-“Sure. What yuh want to print it for, Ike? We ain’t got no paper to
-waste.”
-
-“Magpie,” says I, “a editor likes to see his stuff printed. I got a
-old piece of paper what will do for this.”
-
-Magpie sets the stuff in a little oblong affair, rolls on some ink,
-lays on the piece of paper, and twists down the handle. This is how
-she looks:
-
-                           TAR ON TOMBSTONE
-
-              He was a bad man from Willer Crick.
-              On his birthday suit grows feathers thick.
-              Feathers and tar instead of a grave,
-              Mistook for an editor ’cause of a shave.
-
-Magpie reads it all through. He sets down on a box, rolls a smoke, and
-reads it some more. He walks out to the door, looks around, and comes
-back.
-
-“Who?” he asks.
-
-“Paradise folks, Magpie.”
-
-“Did you see him in here?”
-
-“Uh-huh. He was laying for us.”
-
-“Pshaw!”
-
-Magpie takes his gun out and looks it over, sad-like. He stares at the
-door for a minute, and then—
-
-“What’s the notice on the door?”
-
-He walks over and looks. Somebody has printed a notice and pinned it
-on that busted door, and she reads like this—
-
-                    THIS PAPER HAS QUIT FOR KEEPS
-
-I went back and got that can of ink, and a stick, and I signs it—
-
-                            TOMBSTONE TODD
-
-“What for, Ike?” asks Magpie. “What did he have to do with it?”
-
-“Come back here, and I’ll show yuh.”
-
-I takes him back to the table, and shows him a line of lead letters
-setting there on the table. It’s the biggest in sight, and they reads:
-
-                   EPITAF FOR MAGPY SIMPKIN. BRAVE
-                   MEN AND DARN FULES DON’T SKARE.
-                   HE WAS A DARN FULE MAY HE
-                   REST IN PIECE
-
-We walks almost to the door, when Magpie goes back and gets that stick
-and the can of ink.
-
-“I’ll give him all the credit coming to him, Ike,” says he, and
-underneath Tombstone’s name he prints—
-
-                          EDITOR PRO TEMPORE
-
-
-[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 18, 1918
-issue of Adventure magazine.]
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE ***
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tied Up for Tombstone, by W. C. Tuttle</p>
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-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Tied Up for Tombstone</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: W. C. Tuttle</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 27, 2021 [eBook #66832]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE ***</div>
-
-<div id='i001' class='mt01 mb01 wi001'>
-  <img src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-</div>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-  <h1 style='font-size:1.4em;'>TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE</h1>
-  <div style='margin-top:1em;'>by W. C. Tuttle</div>
-  <div style='font-size:0.8em;margin-bottom:1.7em;'>Author of “Loco or Love,” “Making Good for Muley,” etc. </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Lodestone, you flea-bitten, long-eared ancestor of a jack-rabbit,
-take a look at the best place the Lord ever made, and rejoice with
-me.”</p>
-
-<p>Lodestone wiggles his ears, kicks at a hoss-fly, narrowly missing my
-head, and looks with sad eyes down at the city of Piperock. Then he
-goes to sleep. Which shows that a burro ain’t got no finer feelings.</p>
-
-<p>We been away for quite a while—me and Lodestone. We pilgrims up the
-Bitter Root range to where old Blue Nose sticks into the clouds,
-crosses over and pilgrims back the other side, all of which takes up
-several months, and don’t net me nothing but blisters and blasphemy.</p>
-
-<p>I misses “Magpie” Simpkins a heap, and I welcomes the day when I can
-shake the hand of that long, loose-jointed hombre. Magpie is one of
-the leading citizens of Piperock, and until a few months ago, my
-pardner.</p>
-
-<p>When I left to make my fortune he was setting there in his
-office—Magpie is the sheriff—and wondering how he can square things
-with the populace to get reelected.</p>
-
-<p>He’s of the lodge-pole type, and wears a goodly length of hair on his
-upper lip. He pleads with me not to leave him but for once in my life
-I turns a deaf ear to his siren voice, and herds my burro out of
-hearing.</p>
-
-<p>Piperock ain’t what a stranger would call a paradise on earth, and she
-don’t qualify for the milk and honey, but she’s a man’s town—all up
-and down the street.</p>
-
-<p>Me and Lodestone pilgrims through the dust up to “Buck” Masterson’s
-saloon, and I goes inside. Buck and “Tellurium” are there, and they
-welcomes me like a lost brother. Buck salutes me with the proper
-ingredients, and we exchanges pleasantries.</p>
-
-<p>After we sort of gets used to each other again Buck hauls out a sheet
-of paper, and smooths it out on the bar.</p>
-
-<p>“Take a look at that, Ike,” says he. “There’s something new.”</p>
-
-<p>I sizes her up. It’s what resembles a newspaper—in some respects—but I
-can’t seem to read it none to speak of. The label across the top
-resembles this—</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div style='margin-top:0.7em;margin-bottom:0.7em;'>TOLIP KCOREPIP EHT</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The rest of the page is smears and blots.</p>
-
-<p>“Looks like a Russian proclamation, Buck,” says I. “Where did it come
-from?”</p>
-
-<p>“Right here, Ike; that ex-pardner of yours published it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Magpie?” I asks, and they both nods. “That’s his first edition,”
-replies Buck. “He took over the office when a few of the local boys
-ran the editor across the border for slandering the community. That
-paper invades this here country about a month after you leaves, and
-she runs high along until the editor gets a call to uplift the
-community. Yesterday he beat the posse across the line, and Magpie
-gets out his maiden sheet. This here feller speaks feelingly of
-lawlessness, and even goes so far as to make personal remarks about
-our morals. What he said about the town of Paradise was awful.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is Magpie still sheriff?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“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.”</p>
-
-<p>“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.”</p>
-
-<p>“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.”</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Pretty soon he yawns and lays the paper across his knees.</p>
-
-<p>“Ike,” says he, “that’s some paper.”</p>
-
-<p>“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?”</p>
-
-<p>“That? Huh! <i>The Piperock Pilot</i>!”</p>
-
-<p>“Won’t the letters run the other way, Magpie?”</p>
-
-<p>“I reckon they would, Ike, but how in —— am I going to know what she
-reads? It’s a danged sight easier for the public to read the print
-backwards than it is for me to read the type thataway. I’m glad to see
-yuh, Ike.”</p>
-
-<p>“Still follering the line of least resistance, eh, Magpie? I’m glad to
-see you, too.”</p>
-
-<p>“Accumulate anything on your trip, Ike?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wood-ticks, fool-hens and a growing conviction that rich rock is
-scarce. How’s things at the sheriff’s office?”</p>
-
-<p>“Tolable, Ike. Won by a narrow majority. I reckon if Abe had ’a’ lived
-we’d needed a recount. Lot of folks voted for him after he was dead.”</p>
-
-<p>“They would,” I agrees. “Lot of folks around here ain’t got no more
-ambition than to vote for a corpse. How comes it you’re a editor? Has
-all the bad-men died off or has a moral wave hit Piperock?”</p>
-
-<p>“I always been a critter of circumstance, Ike,” he states, unfolding
-his long legs, and easing his gun handy-like. “I always been a
-disciple of advance, and I’ve worn all the skin off my shoulder trying
-to give the wheels of progress a lift. At times them wheels have
-slipped and sprained my immediate future, but I never peeped.</p>
-
-<p>“When this here misguided editor fades across the horizon, me, being
-sheriff, appropriates this here plant and opines to run it as a public
-institution. There’s twenty-five sheets of paper left and one can of
-ink. My first edition takes twelve sheets, and I hereby claims that a
-man, without no experience, what can rise to the occasion and put out
-a paper like that is a credit to the community.”</p>
-
-<p>“Didn’t you have trouble finding all them letters, Magpie?”</p>
-
-<p>“Trouble? Say, the ends of my fingers are so tender I can hold out my
-hands and feel the sun slide behind the hills. The next publication is
-problematical, Ike. I’m short of material, but I only figures on one
-more issue. I got a article set up, and I can’t publish until the time
-is ripe.”</p>
-
-<p>“Something special?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh. ‘Tombstone’ Todd’s obituary.”</p>
-
-<p>“From Wilier Crick?” I asks, and Magpie nods.</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh. Him and ‘Cactus’ Collins comes over here to help elect Abe
-Anderson, being as Abe was a relative. When Abe departs this here vale
-of tears they up and proclaims they’re a pair of howling wolves, and
-that they’re a permanent fixture around here until such a time as they
-lays me on my back and gestures over me with a spade. Awful pair of
-gobblers, Ike.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why not an obituary for Cactus, too, Magpie?”</p>
-
-<p>“He’s hiding out until such a time as his stummick is normal, Ike. He
-horns in on me yesterday, and gets pessimistic to my face. I’m busy on
-that obituary and don’t like to be interrupted, so I beats him on the
-draw, accepts his gun as a subscription and induces him to eat a
-bucket of paste. Awful smelling mess, Ike. I’d opine that as far as my
-future horoscope is concerned his lips are sealed.”</p>
-
-<p>“Thirteen sheets and one obituary will be something to print,” says I.
-“Has Tombstone made any advances?”</p>
-
-<p>“Once. I was standing over there by the window, holding up one of them
-dinguses what contains type, when a bullet comes along and hits her
-plumb center. She collapses right there and ruins things. Some of that
-lead type enters my bosom, and for the space of a foot square on my
-manly chest I looks like a smallpox patient. This idea of being a man
-of letters ain’t no prosaic pastime, Ike.”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-
-<p>Just then “Scenery” Sims darkens our doorway. Scenery is knee-high to
-a short Injun, and his voice hankers for oil. He looks mean-like at me
-and Magpie, and chaws some industrious. Pretty soon he expectorates
-copiously on the floor, and orates—</p>
-
-<p>“Want to quit taking the paper.”</p>
-
-<p>Magpie snaps out his gun and covers Scenery.</p>
-
-<p>“Get down on your knees and wipe out that —— spot!” snorts Magpie.
-“What do yuh think this is—a corral?”</p>
-
-<p>“I—uh—” begins Scenery, but the gun don’t waver, so he takes the
-handkerchief off his neck, and scrubs our floor.</p>
-
-<p>“This is a newspaper office, Scenery,” states Magpie. “You can’t start
-your oration with a cloud-burst in here. Sabe? What you got against
-the paper, and why for don’t yuh wish it no more?”</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t read her,” he squeaks. “She’s too backward to suit me. Of
-course I—uh—well, send her along, and I’ll—uh—do the best I can. I got
-to go now.”</p>
-
-<p>He slips out with his hat in his hand, and lopes off up the street.</p>
-
-<p>“That’s business, Ike,” laughs Magpie. “I’m going to make ’em like
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“When yuh had the drop on him yuh ought to ’a ’collected in advance
-for another year,” says I. “You sure need a manager, Magpie, for <i>The
-Piperock Pilot, Limited</i>—to thirteen sheets and a death notice.”</p>
-
-<p>“Howdy, gents,” states a voice at the door. “Is this the only
-newspaper in town?”</p>
-
-<p>That person is a novelty in cowland. He stands there, exuding perfume
-and prosperity from his Sunday clothes. We looks him over, from his
-shiny shoes to his hard hat, wonders at his pink cheeks, which match
-his necktie, and both nods.</p>
-
-<p>“You answers your own question, stranger,” states Magpie. “We sure got
-a monopoly on all news hereabouts. Want to subscribe?”</p>
-
-<p>He ambles over and sets down on a stool and looks the place over. He
-takes off his hat, balances it on his knee, and produces some sheets
-of paper.</p>
-
-<p>“What’s your amusement rates?” he asks. “Half-page—maybe full.”</p>
-
-<p>Magpie rolls a fresh smoke and studies the feller.</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” he drawls, “the person who operates here ahead of me makes a
-fixed price of three dollars for six months, but I don’t sabe no case
-in which he split the size. I don’t guarantee to amuse nobody. I’ll be
-honest with yuh, though. This here paper is on its last legs, but I’ll
-danged near guarantee one more issue, and if yuh hankers for it I’ll
-put yuh down for one copy at four-bits.”</p>
-
-<p>“You misunderstood me,” he grins, “I mean advertising rates. I’m ahead
-of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”</p>
-
-<p>He puts his hat back on his head, and shuffles them sheets of paper:</p>
-
-<p>“We are bringing to your town the greatest aggregation of stars that
-ever glowed over one set of footlights. Two <i>Evas</i>, two <i>Topsies</i>,
-three fee-rocious bloodhounds and eight—”</p>
-
-<p><i>Splang!</i></p>
-
-<p>The side window spills its panes over the place, and this person’s hat
-flips off his head, and lands in my lap, while a chunk of lead bores a
-neat hole in the wall behind the stranger. He freezes right there.</p>
-
-<p>Magpie slips his gun across his lap, settles down a little lower in
-his chair, and lights his cigaret. I hands the hat back to its owner,
-and slides my chair a few inches further back.</p>
-
-<p>“Eight what?” asks Magpie.</p>
-
-<p>“Ca-ca-cakes of ice,” he quavers, examining his hat. “My ——! Was that
-a—a—bullet?”</p>
-
-<p>Magpie nods and scratches his chin.</p>
-
-<p>“Bullet?” he wonders again. “Did—did somebody shoot at me?”</p>
-
-<p>“Nope,” says Magpie. “At me. What yuh going to do with the ice?”</p>
-
-<p>He looks at Magpie for a minute, and then gasps—</p>
-
-<p>“At a—a time like this?”</p>
-
-<p>He tucks his hat under his arm, sneaks to the door, and goes around
-the corner so fast his coat simply cracks.</p>
-
-<p>Magpie slips his gun loose and spins the cylinder, hitches up his belt
-and yawns:</p>
-
-<p>“Ike, I ain’t got nothing to prove who it was but I has the feeling
-that Tombstone is going too danged far. There’s such a thing as
-personal animosity, but when yuh bust into a man’s business and cause
-him financial loss it’s time to start a probe. That show person was
-about to help us pay our overhead expenses, but now he’s gone gun-shy.</p>
-
-<p>“I hereby deputizes you to operate this here plant, while I fulfils
-the obligations of my oath concerning public nuisances. You got plenty
-of ammunition, Ike?”</p>
-
-<p>“I ain’t no editor, Magpie,” I objects. “I can’t even sign my own name
-so folks can read it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Sign mine,” says he. “You’re editor <i>pro tempore</i>. Sabe?” And then he
-slips out of the door.</p>
-
-<p>I looks around, casual-like, places my .41 beside me on a chair, and
-sets down out of line with any window or door. It’s warm in there, and
-there’s a funny smell about the place. I had several scoops of gall
-and wormwood in Buck’s place, and the combination woos sleep in
-copious gobs. My sombrero slips over my face, and I sleep.</p>
-
-<p>Sudden-like I wakes, and believe me she’s a rude awakening. Somebody
-kicks the chair out from under me, and proceeds to knead my abdomen
-with their knees, toes, fingers, thumbs and head. When that part is
-over they turns me on my face and rakes me fore and aft with a pair of
-long-roweled spurs, while they links their hands in my hair and
-hammers my forehead on the floor. When I ain’t got more than a glimmer
-of light left in my system they seems to draw aside and rest.</p>
-
-<p>“There!” I hears a voice state. “Next time yuh prints your danged
-newspaper you’ll please leave my name out. Sabe? I ain’t no shepherd,
-and my shirt is as clean as yours!”</p>
-
-<p>“‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, you’re an assassin,” says I, weak-like.</p>
-
-<p>He pulls my hat off the bridge of my nose and takes a look at me.</p>
-
-<p>“Ike, I’m glad to see yuh back,” says he. “When did yuh get back?”</p>
-
-<p>“Today. Are you the reception committee?”</p>
-
-<p>“Me? Nope. I’m an enraged citizen, Ike. I mistook yuh for the editor.”</p>
-
-<p>“No mistake, Dirty, I’m him.”</p>
-
-<p>Of course I got that .41 in my hands when I makes that statement, and
-Dirty don’t make no demonstration.</p>
-
-<p>“Take it easy,” I advises. “I ain’t the one you’re sore at. Magpie is
-the regular editor but he’s down at the jail.”</p>
-
-<p>Dirty chaws for a few seconds, and hitches up his pants:</p>
-
-<p>“Much obliged, Ike. Sorry I licked yuh thataway. Yuh see that paper
-orates that the population ought to get sanitary—whatever that is. He
-states that a dirty shirt designates a shepherd—dang his hide! Well,
-Ike, I gives yuh good afternoon.”</p>
-
-<p>“Good afternoon ain’t much to give a man after you’ve give him ——,” I
-opines. “But I’ll take it, Dirty, old-timer. I reckon I’ll need
-everything I can get before I goes to press.”</p>
-
-<p>I sets there and complains bitterly to myself about folks who don’t
-keep up to date on news, wipes the worst of the ink off my face, and
-goes back to sleep.</p>
-
-<p>“Slim” Hawkins woke me up. Slim would make a good running-mate for
-Magpie. He’s built in the same proportions. He’s had a few drinks, and
-is as serious as a owl.</p>
-
-<p>“Ike,” says he, “take a look at my eyes and see if they’re all right.”</p>
-
-<p>“Little off color but pointing straight, Slim. What’s wrong?”</p>
-
-<p>“Somebody drops a paper at the ranch today, and when I tries to peruse
-same I finds that I’m left-handed and cross-eyed. I’ve suffered a
-heap, Ike, and while I hopes for the best I fears the worst. I’d hate
-to go around looking at things backwards thataway. Might as well learn
-to read Chinese. Where’s the educated party what operates this here
-newspaper?”</p>
-
-<p>“He’s—” I begins, but an apparition which I deciphers to be Dirty
-Shirt, comes in the door.</p>
-
-<p>He seems to have met disaster. His hair has been pawed down over a
-pair of black eyes, and over his head and under one arm hangs what is
-left of a framed map of Montana, which adorned Magpie’s office.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-
-<p>He feels painfully in his pockets, takes out three silver dollars, and
-lays ’em on the table.</p>
-
-<p>“Dirty Shirt Jones—three months,” he states, slow and sad-like.</p>
-
-<p>“Your subscription expired?” I asks, and he nods.</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh. I reckon. Everything else has.”</p>
-
-<p>“Better take back some of it,” I advises. “This here paper is about to
-cease. One more effort cleans the rack.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know,” nods Dirty Shirt. “Keep the money and send me a copy. If
-Magpie can edit like he can fight I’ll covet that copy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Keep that frame to put it in,” says I. “You met the editor, did yuh?”</p>
-
-<p>Dirty squints at me, adjusts that frame to a easier position, and rubs
-his sore eyes.</p>
-
-<p>“Met him!” he snorts. “Met ——! We mingled!”</p>
-
-<p>Dirty weaves out of the door and points up the street. Slim looks at
-them three dollars and then lays three more beside ’em.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t sabe the game, Ike, but I’m matching Dirty’s ante. I don’t
-know what Magpie’s argument is, but anybody what can make Dirty Shirt
-pay three dollars for a left-handed newspaper must have something
-besides conversation.”</p>
-
-<p>“But Dirty Shirt was sore,” says I. “He came down to lick the editor.”</p>
-
-<p>“Me, too, Ike. I came with malice in my heart but I goes away plumb
-meek. Dirty Shirt licked thunder out of me once, so I’m three dollars
-thankful that he met Magpie first. Have a little drink?”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s the first United States I’ve heard spoken since I got home,”
-says I. “But I can’t leave the office alone. You go up and have one,
-and then play editor while I goes up. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>Slim comes back in a few minutes, and holds down the place while I
-pilgrims up to Buck’s place. Me and Buck and “Half-Mile” Smith leans
-on the door and discusses local conditions.</p>
-
-<p>“Show troupe in town,” states Half-Mile. “Came in on the stage. Seven
-or eight people, two colored persons and some dogs. They got a drum
-and a lot of horns, etcetery. I’d opine we’ll have some music.”</p>
-
-<p>“I love a good show,” says Buck. “The last good one I seen was at
-Silver Bend. They played Shakespeare. Had a ghost and I was just drunk
-enough to enjoy it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Give me a drink, quick!” pants a voice at the door, and into the
-place comes “Ricky” Henderson. He takes a long drink out of the
-bottle, and leans against the bar.</p>
-
-<p>“Suffering surcingles!” he pants. “I’ve sure had one job! That or’nary
-hombre, Tombstone Todd, comes into my place a while ago, and climbs
-into a chair.</p>
-
-<p>“‘Young feller,’ says he, ‘my hair and whiskers are too noticeable, so
-I admires to see ’em on the floor.’ He hauls out a six-gun, lays it
-across his lap, and leans back in the chair. ‘Young feller,’ says he
-again, ‘a razor what pulls is an abomination and a barber what uses
-one is flirting with the undertaker. Let your judgment be your
-guide.’”</p>
-
-<p>“Was he satisfied?” asks Buck.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m here, ain’t I?” grins Ricky. “But I wouldn’t do it again for a
-million dollars.”</p>
-
-<p>“And you with a razor in your hand all this time, and his head tilted
-back?” wonders Half-Mile, aloud.</p>
-
-<p>Ricky stares at Half-Mile and considers the remark.</p>
-
-<p>“I seen a colored brother with a razor once—” began Half-Mile, but he
-happens to glance towards the door.</p>
-
-<p>We all takes a look.</p>
-
-<p>“Speak of the devil and—” murmurs Buck, but the colored person at the
-door bursts into profanity that would shame a professor from a mule
-college.</p>
-
-<p>“Why didn’t yuh come back, Ike?” he wails. “Sus-somebody sneaked in,
-hit me over the head, dud-dragged me into the back room and poured a
-can of ink all over me! My ——! It won’t never come off! He said he
-wanted to make me eat some paste, but he couldn’t find it. Look at me!
-All inked to ——!”</p>
-
-<p>“Gosh!” exclaims Magpie from the doorway. “Ain’t that too danged bad!
-That’s the only can of ink there was left.”</p>
-
-<p>“Too bad, eh?” howls Slim. “I wish I knowed the name of that hombre.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did he speak feelingly of paste?” asks Magpie.</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh,” agrees Slim, drawing figures on the bar with his inky
-finger. “He sort of choked over the word. He ——”</p>
-
-<p>“Hey! Sam!” yells a voice at the door, and we observes a stranger in
-our midst.</p>
-
-<p>It’s sort of dark inside, but he seems to know what he wants. He
-ambles straight up to Slim, and grabs him by the arm.</p>
-
-<p>“You slew-footed, wobble-jointed son of a cannibal!” he yelps.
-“Where’s them pink silk underclothes of mine, eh?”</p>
-
-<p>Slim Hawkins is slow to anger, but when he does get to going he’s hard
-to stop. He climbs under and over and through this stranger like he
-was searching for something, and when he gets through this feller
-ain’t got nothing on but a look of wonderment and one sleeve of his
-undershirt. Slim looks over the pile of clothes on the floor, and
-shakes his head.</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t find ’em,” he states, serious-like. “Furthermore I don’t
-admire to be called a son of a cannibal, Mister Man!”</p>
-
-<p>The feller braces his hands behind him on the floor, and shakes his
-head like he was trying to collect his thoughts. He squints at Slim,
-and then explodes:</p>
-
-<p>“My ——! You ain’t Sam!”</p>
-
-<p>“A slight inquiry would have saved us all this search,” says Slim.
-“Who is Sam?”</p>
-
-<p>“One of my company—my <i>Uncle Tom</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>“So?” drawled Slim. “You with this here ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ outfit?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” says he. “I’m <i>Simon Legree</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>“So?”</p>
-
-<p>Slim picks the gent up by one leg and an arm, carries him out and
-dumps him right into the street without no clothes on.</p>
-
-<p>“There!” yells Slim, as the stranger hits the dirt. “I’ve read all
-about yuh, Mister Legree, and this is one colored person yuh can’t run
-no sandy on. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>This Legree person don’t linger. It’s about two hundred yards to
-Holt’s hotel door, and he negotiates the distance in the time it takes
-Slim to shoot six shots into the dirt behind him. On his way he meets
-“Cobalt” Williams. Cobalt steps to one side to let him past, catches
-his spur in the dirt, and sets down. It spoils his aim, he tears the
-knob off the door after it shuts behind Legree. Cobalt gets up and
-comes on down to the saloon, shaking his head.</p>
-
-<p>“What yuh trying to do—kill him? Yuh danged fool!” snorts Slim.</p>
-
-<p>Cobalt had reached for the bottle, but he turns to look at Slim and
-his hand drops. He pushes his hat back and stares at Slim and seems to
-swaller with difficulty.</p>
-
-<p>“Ex-cuse me,” he says, sort of to himself. “No more Paradise hooch for
-mine! Mike Pelly said it was a hundred and twenty proof, and this
-proves it. First I see a naked man running around the main street, and
-then I meets a colored brother what looks like Slim Hawkins. I’m
-through! Sabe? I’m going home—me!”</p>
-
-<p>He ducks out, gets his bronc at the rack and points out of town.</p>
-
-<p>“That’s what I’d call a temperance lecture in ink,” opines Magpie. “As
-editor and a man of letters I congratulates yuh. We can hereby reverse
-that old saying, ‘He who runs may read’ and make it, ‘He who reads may
-run.’”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-
-<p>We inaugurates a poker game and plays until almost dark, when
-sudden-like we hears the sound of music, and stampedes to the door.
-Here comes that show bunch down the street, and stops in front of the
-old Mint Hall. They got a banner what proclaims there will be a show
-tonight, and “Mighty” Jones is packing the banner, with his chest
-stuck out like a fool-hen after a feed.</p>
-
-<p>We cashes in and goes over to the band.</p>
-
-<p>“When did you start to be a actor, Mighty?” asks Magpie, but the
-feller what Slim took apart steps between Magpie and Mighty and peers
-at Magpie’s star.</p>
-
-<p>“Pardon me,” says he, “I see you’re the sheriff.”</p>
-
-<p>“You’re pardoned, and I congratulates yuh on your eyesight,” replies
-Magpie.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve lost my dogs,” says he. “Somebody must ’a’ stole ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>By this time most everybody in Piperock has congregated around. Music
-sure is a magnet for folks and dogs.</p>
-
-<p>“Pick out what yuh want,” says Magpie, indicating any amount of
-canines, circling around through people’s legs. “Losing a few dogs
-ain’t no disaster around here.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mine are valuable dogs,” states Legree, in a loud tone. “Trained
-dogs. Our show can’t proceed without them dogs.”</p>
-
-<p>“Name, age and description,” says Magpie, hauling out a little
-note-book. “Also any distinguishing marks and brands.”</p>
-
-<p>“One bloodhound, crossed with St. Bernard and collie; color, yaller;
-named Violet.”</p>
-
-<p>“<i>War-hoo-o-o-o!</i>” howls a dog up the street.</p>
-
-<p>“<i>Yeo-o-o-o-ow!</i>” yells somebody. “Look out!”</p>
-
-<p>There’s a sudden movement at the far end of the congregation. I sees a
-bronc turn a handspring, a pair of cream-colored broncs leaves their
-halters at the hitch-rack, while they comes over to visit us, and
-Violet is no longer a lost dog.</p>
-
-<p>Violet is about the size of a he-wolf, and she seems to think she can
-outrun the string of tomato cans which are tied to her tail. She goes
-through, under and over that crowd, and what she don’t do to us is
-left for that pair of broncs and the buckboard. A million dog-fights
-start right there.</p>
-
-<p>Me and <i>Legree</i> are close together and the confusion seems to bring us
-close to each other. We hits the sidewalk together and I’m underneath.
-A couple of rotten boards break, and yours truly disappears.</p>
-
-<p>When I recovers sufficient-like to peek out it’s about all over. Every
-bronc that was tied to the rack is gone, and part of one rack is
-missing. Most of the crowd is on the far side of the street, but our
-side is still well represented. Two local dogs are still hauling at
-each other.</p>
-
-<p>Dirty Shirt Jones’ head protrudes from the side of that big drum, and
-his right arm is wedged straight up, making him look like a drowning
-man what is going down for the last time.</p>
-
-<p>Mighty Jones has got one boot through the mechanical end of a big
-brass horn, while from inside the other boot protrudes that banner,
-with the proclamation missing.</p>
-
-<p>Magpie is lying near me, with both feet through Wick Smith’s picket
-fence, and he’s still studying that little note-book.</p>
-
-<p>“Was that last one Lucy or Hannibal?” he asks, slow and deliberate.</p>
-
-<p>“It—it don’t make no matter,” says a weak voice, “they’re all gone
-past anyway,” and the man who got his hat punctured in the newspaper
-office rises up from behind the fence, and tugs at the brim of his
-hat, which is hanging around his neck.</p>
-
-<p>I goes out and helps to cut Dirty Shirt loose from the drum, when up
-comes one of Holt’s kids.</p>
-
-<p>“Mister,” says he to the show feller, “I seen a man tie them cans on
-your dogs.”</p>
-
-<p>“Give the sheriff a description of him,” says he, excited-like. “I
-offers ten dollars reward for the conviction of the persons connected
-with the dastardly outrage.”</p>
-
-<p>“Cheap enough,” agrees Magpie. “Did he have a long mustache and long
-hair?”</p>
-
-<p>“Naw. He didn’t have no hair on his face a-tall,” replies the kid.</p>
-
-<p>“Must a been an outside job,” proclaims Magpie. “All the men in
-Piperock wear hair on their faces, except Slim Hawkins, and he wears
-ink.”</p>
-
-<p>Me and Magpie pilgrims home and uses up a bottle of hoss liniment.</p>
-
-<p>“When yuh going to get that Tombstone person?” I asks, after we
-finishes our supper. “There ain’t no sense in leaving a critter like
-him loose, Magpie.”</p>
-
-<p>“He’s a ornery hombre all right, all right,” agrees Magpie. “He ain’t
-so dangerous as he is plumb mean, Ike. He’s shot at me several times,
-but as he ain’t hit me yet I reckon he’s trying to scare me. Must ’a’
-been Cactus what painted Slim with the ink. Me and Slim are the same
-build.</p>
-
-<p>“I sure wish that Tombstone could live long enough to read his
-obituary, Ike. She’s a bird. I sure dug deep into my soul for that
-stuff, and I surprises myself with what I writes. Them two is sore
-over the election. They opined to be deputies under Anderson.”</p>
-
-<p>“That paper must ’a’ printed some truths about folks,” I opines, and
-Magpie grins:</p>
-
-<p>“You said something, Ike. He sure did ride folks. Yuh ought to see
-what he said about Paradise folks. I reckon they’re just about
-starting to boil over down there.”</p>
-
-<p>“Didn’t you print yours right soon, Magpie?” I asks. “Seems to me that
-it’s a weekly.”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh—comes out on Friday. Yuh see I had to change that day right
-off the reel, ’cause if I had any hangings to attend to it would
-interfere with the paper. I looks into the future, Ike.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” says I, “it don’t make much difference now, being as the ink
-is all gone.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s so. I wish you’d ’a’ stayed there and ’tended to business,
-Ike.”</p>
-
-<p>“And got all inked up, eh? I never did have any luck, and if it had
-’a’ been me somebody would ’a’ come in and helped Cactus find that
-paste jar. Too bad the show got busted up thataway.”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh,” yawns Magpie. “We ain’t had a good show for a long time, but
-I don’t admire a show what depends on three dogs and eight cakes of
-ice. Let’s hit the hay.”</p>
-
-<p>That night somebody comes down and paints a skull and cross bones on
-our door, and it makes Magpie sore.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m commencing to get riled internally, Ike,” he states, when he
-views said works of art. “You go back and hold down the newspaper, and
-in a little while I’ll show yuh the scalp of this artist. Rustle
-around and see if there’s any ink left.</p>
-
-<p>“I got that obituary all fixed up left-handed, and she’s cached under
-a soap-box behind the printing machine. Don’t jiggle it ’cause she’s
-fragile as ——! I left that page just like she was for the other paper,
-but I got a place in it what fits this here masterpiece of mine. If
-Tombstone should make a mistake and hit me yuh won’t need the
-obituary. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh, I’ll just run the rest, Magpie. It looks like a bundle o’
-crape anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>“And Ike,” he reminds me, as I buckles on my gun, “yuh take that type
-stuff and put it inside the press. Sabe? Then yuh take that roller
-thing and pour on some ink, roll her over the letters, slap on a sheet
-of paper and twist that handle down hard.”</p>
-
-<p>“You furnish the news, Magpie,” says I. “I’ll hold the wheels of
-progress for Tombstone Todd.”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-
-<p>I goes up to Buck’s place, and settles some elixir under my belt,
-while me and Buck talks over the humdrum existence we’re leading.</p>
-
-<p>“Dirty Shirt is still going around with his right hand up in the air,”
-laughs Buck. “Reckon he’s flagged every one in sight.”</p>
-
-<p>“How’s the show outfit?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“Right miserable, I reckon. All of ’em except one left on the stage
-this morning. That exception—a colored person—mistakes Slim for a
-blood-brother, and being as Slim ain’t back yet, I’d say they went
-quite a ways. I never seen fast black fade the way that person did.</p>
-
-<p>“That other colored member didn’t have much to say this morning. He
-was packing one of them slide horns in the band last night, and when
-the buckboard hit him he sails right into Pete Gonyer. Him and Pete
-holds about even until Pete gets his hands loose, and then he winds
-that horn around the feller’s neck so many times that we has to lay
-that colored gent across an anvil and cut it loose with a
-cold-chisel.”</p>
-
-<p>“Seen anything of Tombstone Todd or Cactus Collins?” I asks, but Buck
-says:</p>
-
-<p>“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?”</p>
-
-<p>“Magpie suffers from softening of the heart,” says I “but him or
-Tombstone is due to hunt the hereafter right soon.”</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<p>“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.”</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>I watches ’em go away, and then I yawns some more and enters the
-sacred precincts of <i>The Piperock Pilot</i>. 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:</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div style='margin-top:1em;'>EPITAPH ON TOMBSTONE</div>
-</div>
-<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto'>
-<div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'>
-<div class='cbline'>He was a bad man from Willer Crick.</div>
-<div class='cbline'>His bluff was good but it didn’t stick.</div>
-<div class='cbline'>He shot at the sheriff till the sheriff got sore,</div>
-<div class='cbline'>Now his boots leave tracks on that beautiful shore.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I wipes the tears off my cheeks when I reads it. Magpie said he had
-put his soul into it, but I never knowed before how deep Magpie’s soul
-really was. It’s a hy-iu composition, but I got a better idea. I takes
-it over to where them lead letters repose, and reconstructs the thing
-a bit.</p>
-
-<p>I ain’t no poet, but in a time like this a man’s spirit guides his
-fingers. I works for an hour, trying to make the blamed things stand
-up long enough to be read backwards, and I’m sore enough to kick a
-baby when Magpie shows up. He looks at me and grins, when he sees what
-I’m doing, and rolls a smoke.</p>
-
-<p>“One of ’em has left, Ike,” he states. “Hank Padden rode in a while
-ago, and said he met Cactus Collins on his way to Willer Crick. I’ll
-get Tombstone before night. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>“Them is noble resolutions, Magpie. You know how to make this stuff
-stand up while she leaves her message on paper?”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure. What yuh want to print it for, Ike? We ain’t got no paper to
-waste.”</p>
-
-<p>“Magpie,” says I, “a editor likes to see his stuff printed. I got a
-old piece of paper what will do for this.”</p>
-
-<p>Magpie sets the stuff in a little oblong affair, rolls on some ink,
-lays on the piece of paper, and twists down the handle. This is how
-she looks:</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div style='margin-top:1em;'>TAR ON TOMBSTONE</div>
-</div>
-<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto'>
-<div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'>
-<div class='cbline'>He was a bad man from Willer Crick.</div>
-<div class='cbline'>On his birthday suit grows feathers thick.</div>
-<div class='cbline'>Feathers and tar instead of a grave,</div>
-<div class='cbline'>Mistook for an editor ’cause of a shave.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Magpie reads it all through. He sets down on a box, rolls a smoke, and
-reads it some more. He walks out to the door, looks around, and comes
-back.</p>
-
-<p>“Who?” he asks.</p>
-
-<p>“Paradise folks, Magpie.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you see him in here?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh. He was laying for us.”</p>
-
-<p>“Pshaw!”</p>
-
-<p>Magpie takes his gun out and looks it over, sad-like. He stares at the
-door for a minute, and then—</p>
-
-<p>“What’s the notice on the door?”</p>
-
-<p>He walks over and looks. Somebody has printed a notice and pinned it
-on that busted door, and she reads like this—</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div>THIS PAPER HAS QUIT FOR KEEPS</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I went back and got that can of ink, and a stick, and I signs it—</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div>TOMBSTONE TODD</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“What for, Ike?” asks Magpie. “What did he have to do with it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Come back here, and I’ll show yuh.”</p>
-
-<p>I takes him back to the table, and shows him a line of lead letters
-setting there on the table. It’s the biggest in sight, and they reads:</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto'>
-<div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'>
-<div class='cbline'>EPITAF FOR MAGPY SIMPKIN. BRAVE</div>
-<div class='cbline'>MEN AND DARN FULES DON’T SKARE.</div>
-<div class='cbline'>HE WAS A DARN FULE MAY HE</div>
-<div class='cbline'>REST IN PIECE</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>We walks almost to the door, when Magpie goes back and gets that stick
-and the can of ink.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll give him all the credit coming to him, Ike,” says he, and
-underneath Tombstone’s name he prints—</p>
-
-<div class='tac mb02'>EDITOR PRO TEMPORE</div>
-
-<div class="tn">
-  <p>Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in
-  the September 18, 1918 issue of <em>Adventure</em> magazine.</p>
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIED UP FOR TOMBSTONE ***</div>
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index 2c25292..0000000
--- a/old/66832-h/images/illus-001.jpg
+++ /dev/null