“Dirty Shirt Jones,” says I, “them words are all right, but your voice proclaims that you comes from a family of woodpeckers.”

And then me and Dirty Shirt meets “Solemn” Sales. We pokes into a little cabin on the side of the hill, and there we finds a feller setting by a little table, peering at some hand-made figures on a sheet of wrapping-paper.

We announces our names, and he admits his. He’s a melancholy-looking hombre, that Solemn person. He indicates a bench and goes on figuring.

“Bookkeeper?” asks Dirty.

“Scientist,” says he, sighing like he was looking over his own obituary. “Hard facts are hard facts, and some may disagree, but I figures it to assay about fifty-fifty.”

“Even break,” nods Dirty, “unless you speak of whisky and water.”

“Even so, even so, but that don’t answer the question before me. My old pardner, ‘Baldy’ Benson, got bit by a rattler. Now, according to materia medica, the bite of a rattler is pizen: maybe not deadly in all cases, but in order not to confuse the public they uses the word pizen, the same as temperance orators refer to as distilled liquors.

“Anyway, Baldy got bit, and he gallops back here to the shack, where he sets down and absorbs a quart of whisky without taking a breath. Now, according to unofficial practise in such cases, the hooch is an antidote for the snake-bite, and Baldy should have got well or drunk. He didn’t do either, gents: he up and died. Now I’m trying to arrive at some conclusion as to his untimely demise. Was it the snake or the hooch, or did them two pizens meet inside of poor Baldy and cause spontaneous combustion?”

“What kind of whisky?” asks Dirty Shirt.

“Well,” says Solemn, “that’s going too deep. In such a case you’d have to find out the pizenous principles, degree of peevishness and length of fang of the snake. I pass the hand and call for a drink.”

“Of the same kind that Baldy suicided on?” I asks.

“Daw-w-w-w-w-w—gone,” Solemn drawls it out and grins joyful like. “That’s her! Suicide, induced primarily by being scared of snakes. You sure are quick at figures. If you’ll go with me to Horse Heaven I’ll buy us each a drink.”

“Horse Heaven?” asks Dirty.

“Yeah. Never heard of the town? Well, you ain’t lost much.”

“Nice place?” I asks, and Solemn snorts.

“Worse than that. Horse Heaven was sired by a bunch of crooked gamblers and damned by everybody that ever climbed up the main street. This here trail you comes on leads to the placer mines on Hondo Creek and also to the mines on Lost Horse.

“They makes life miserable for gamblers and saloonkeepers in both localities; so they comes here to the only spring within miles, builds their temples of chance in another county and gets them going and coming. Sabe?

“Each and every one of them saloons has a following, and between pay-days and suckers they spends their time trying to kill each other off. I ain’t been up there for two days, ’cause another pay-day ain’t far off and they covets each other’s chances. Gents, she’s a bad town: bad in heart and soul. Still wishful to see how she works?”

“Well,” says Dirty, “me and Ike can breathe freely in any place that a he-human can endure. Lead on, and may Horse Heaven regret it.”

“Horse Heaven can take care of itself.”

“Which is an admirable quality,” I admits.

According to all things which are true as Gospel, horses don’t go to Heaven, and this is the reason why this here goat refuge gets its name—a horse couldn’t get there. It sets right on top of the world. There’s just one side of a street, composed of four saloons, a general store and an undertaking shop.

You have to hang on to a rope to climb up to the first saloon; then you walk on a level to the next, slide to the next, from which you can almost hop off on to the roof of the fourth. Next comes the store, and, if by the time you get that far you have anything left, there is still the undertaker left to contend with, and he keeps a looped rope handy on the porch.

Seems that Horse Heaven was built high and handsome thataway on account of the fresh water spring, which bubbles out of the top of the hill. Solemn says that the water is on the American plan—there if you want it and handy to wash in if you feels dudish.

The saloons are named the Ace of Diamonds, King of Clubs, Queen of Spades and Ten of Hearts. Dirty reads the names from a distance and opines that they’re short one card of being a straight.

“All they need is a knave,” says he.

“You don’t know the town,” sighs Solemn. “They don’t need any more.”

“Looks like a feudal hangout,” observes Dirty.

“Well,” Solemn spits about five miles down the hill. “Education is mighty nice, I reckon. I don’t sabe that word, but you can’t say anything bad about the town and get an argument out of me.”

“Incorporated?” asks Dirty.

“Disintegrated,” says Solemn. “Everybody hates everybody else. It’s just a town—that’s all. Over the Ace of Diamonds is Delmonico’s hotel, but nobody hives up there on account of the floors being too thin to stop lead from below.

“I orates that the name don’t fit at all, being as the original Delmonico’s ain’t no hotel. ‘Poetry’ Peters replies aloud that the original ain’t got nothing on the imitation, cause the bedbugs prevents it from being a place of rest.

“The town sort of takes sides in the argument, the same of which causes an undertaker to open a place of business. Six solid citizens gets presented with tombstones. Since that time there ain’t been nothing but ill feeling and a falling off in marshals.”

“I don’t reckon any sane man wants the job of marshal here,” observes Dirty.

“Nope,” agrees Solemn, “I reckon not. Don’t know who will get the job after I’m gone.”

“Marshal?” asks Dirty. “You ain’t got no jail, judge nor justice.”

“Nope.”

“What do you do with a prisoner?” I asks.

“Lead him to Broadway and Fifth avenue and kick him off.”

“Do they ever come back to trouble you?” asks Dirty.

“Nope. Mostly always they don’t even look back.”

Then we stops to rest on the steps of the undertaking shop. We ain’t been there long when out comes a woful-looking Jasper. He’s got a long, lean neck which don’t noways fill up his collar, and his narrow face is plentifully covered with straw-colored stubble. He’s only about five feet three inches high, and he’s wearing a suit of clothes that was made for a lodge-pole.

He sort of jerks his head back and forth in that collar like a turkey buzzard walking on a hot rock.

“Howdy, Marshal,” says he, pecking his head back and forth at each word.

“Tolerable, ‘Tombstone.’ How’s business?”

He peers at me and Dirty and wipes his mouth with the back of his scrawny hand.

“Strangers?” he asks. “Strangers to Horse Heaven?”

“You don’t reckon they’d be here if they wasn’t, do you?” asks Solemn. “This one is named Ike Harper, and the other one is Dirty Shirt Jones. Gents, meet Tombstone Taylor.”

“Five feet nine inches,” says he, shaking hands with me and peering from the top of my head to my toes, and then he looks at Dirty.

“About two inches less. Mr. Harper is wide in the shoulders and bowed in the legs, but in a pinch I can spring the sides a little. Glad to meet you.”

“My ——!” grunts Dirty, wide-eyed. “Did you ever see such a wide-awake business man in your life, Ike?”

“Tombstone is a successor to the business,” explains Solemn. “His uncle was here first, but he made a mistake. When ‘Rusty’ Rawlins died, his pal, ‘Fried Egg’ Freeman, opines that nothing is too good for Rusty; so he opines to have a suitable tombstone engraved.

“Fried Egg wasn’t any too well educated, but he wrote out what he wanted on that stone and hands same to the undertaker, who made all his own tombstones. The stone was in place when Fried Egg came back; so he goes out to look her over. The epitaph reads:

“Fried Egg looks it over and then comes up here. Him and the undertaker glares at each other.

“‘Whyfor does you go against orders and prescription?’ asks Fried Egg. ‘I said that Rusty was a local celebrity—daw-w-w-w-gone you! Also and moreover, you didn’t put on that last part, Not Dead But Sleeping.’

“‘I deciphers your screed as she shows,’ replies the undertaker, ‘and as far as that last part goes—I won’t bunco anybody. Sabe? I laid him out myself after he’s dead three days in July, and I’m orating aloud that you’re either lying or badly mistaken.’”

“Such is true,” grins Tombstone. “They both shoots at the same time. I buried Fried Egg in a casket we brought here for you, Marshal—the one with silverine handles. I got this suit off uncle. That was a big day for me, gents. I ain’t got much stock left, but she’s open for inspection. Name-plates as follows: Father, Mother, He Done Well and Gone Hence. Which do you prefer?”

“My ——!” snorts Dirty, wide-eyed. “Let’s get a drink before I gets morbid and starts killing.”

“Pick ’em short of six feet,” says Tombstone. “’Cause I can’t splice a casket.”

We climbs on a little ways, and then Solemn says—

“You fellers ain’t getting cold feet, are you?”

“Us?” Dirty stops and looks Solemn over. “Say, feller, did you ever hear of the Pirates of Piperock? Did you? Well, me and Ike are the last survivors. Sabe? We came away to let the place grow. Ain’t it true, Ike?”

“Well,” says I, “that was mostly the reason, and the other reason was because we ran out of planks to walk ’em on.”

“Pirates?” says Solemn, scratching his head. “Name’s familiar.”

“Gosh!” grunts Dirty. “This sure is an unenlightened village, Ike.”

“I reckon you fellers are humdingers all right,” admits Solemn. “You’ll do well——”

A bullet hums off a rock beside us, and we all ducks down.

“Now,” says Solemn, “that’s to be expected, I reckon. Thought maybe I could do better, being as I’ve got company; still this is further up than I’ve been able to go for two days. Mostly always they send me behind a rock down below Tombstone’s place.”

Comes the whang of another shot, but we don’t hear the lead.

“Now I wonder—” begins Solemn, lifting his hat above the top of the rock and pulling it down quick. Then he shoved it up again.

“That’s one good thing about the town,” says he, putting on his hat and stepping out into the trail. “Come on, gents. Somebody got the bushwhacker who was sniping at us.”

Me and Dirty looks foolish-like at each other. We ain’t exactly meek and mild, but this place is different than what we’ve seen, and this survival of the best shots don’t appeal to us very much.

We climbs along for a minute, and then Solemn stops. He points to a lot of writing on a flat rock, the words painted big in white, and this is what we reads:

I think that some day I will come and put you bad-men on the bum: That will be swell. Then me and you, who’ve stood the shocks and peddled lead from behind rocks and dodged and ducked from morn ’til night and shot at everything in sight, can rise right up amid the dust and make a better town or bust. But ’til I do I’ll keep away, and to ye all I hereby say—

Horse Heaven go to ——!

“Sweet thoughts,” says Dirty, and just then another bullet comes along and leaves a dirty smear across them white letters. Dirty is so cock-eyed that he can only shoot one gun at a time, but what he can’t do with that one gun won’t ever bother old man Colt.

“Poetry Peters wrote that poem,” explains Solemn, as we humps down behind the rock. “He’s been chased out several times, ’cause he’s in favor of a straight game. He sneaked up here one morning, and, between answering shots with the population and writing that poem, he spent about eight hours.”

A feller sticks his head out of the store and peers around. He’s got a pipe in his mouth.

“I hate a pipe,” says Dirty, and just then his gun roars beside me, and I see that feller yank his head back, but not soon enough to save the pipe-bowl from erasure. He spits out the stem and falls back through the door. It was about a hundred-foot shot.

“My gosh!” grunts Solemn. “Did you shoot at that pipe?”

“Hit it, didn’t I?” asks Dirty.

“Daw-w-w-w-w-w—gone!”

Another shot comes from the door of the store, and my perfectly good sombrero gets lifted high. That hat cost me fifteen dollars five years ago, and having it mussed makes me sore; so I unhooks six shots into the door of that place, and Dirty shoots out what remains of the window. Another shot seems to irritate Solemn; so he empties his gun for general results.

“We better move,” says Solemn. “Otherwise that fool ‘Bull’ Burgoyne will wipe out all of Poetry’s poem, and besides I ain’t noways prepared for a siege. You fellers both shoot .41s and mine is a .44. Let’s sneak around the side and see if Bull will sell us some shells. If we can kill him first, we can save money, ’cause he charges three prices for his daw-w-w-w-w—gone shells.”

We ducks low and lopes across Broadway, where we hugs the side of the store. Solemn hammers on the wall and yells—

“Bull, do you hear me?”

No reply, and then Solemn states:

“You has aroused my ire, Bull, and I’m going to damage you if you don’t change your ways. Sabe? If you don’t hang your empty hands out of the window and bid us welcome, I’m going to make you hard to catch like a coyote.”

“Come in,” yelps a muffled voice, and we ducked around to the front and skidded inside.

At first we don’t see anything of the proprietor, but all to once we sees a pile of sacked flour on the floor, and from under it sticks a hand. We lifts the sacks to one side and lets Bull Burgoyne stand up.

“I have dem sacks flour hang up by a rope to ceiling so de pack-rat she can’t eat,” he pants, making up a rheumatic face. “An’ den along comes bullet and cuts der rope when I’m below. By gar, I’m bus’ up complete, Solemn.”

“How’s business?” asks Solemn.

“Bad today. Pretty soon I have customer—plenty. Everybody in town she shoot and shoot for two day. Bimeby she’s run out of shell, an’ den Bull he’s mak’ money, eh? You bet!”

“Anybody get killed?” asks Solemn.

“Me, I’m not know. Poetry Peters, she’s get loco and come here. She’s aim for clean up place. Sabe? Poetry, she’s wear tar and fedder. You know Bill La Fond? She’s pardnair for Poetry. She’s lose money and get shot at plenty, ba gosh! Me, I’m weesh she’s come back. She’s owe me for forty pounds of giant powder. Five small box.

“I tell Bill to stay here while I eat myself for lunch. When I come back, she’s gone with those boxes powdair. I find note which I can’t read. Maybe you read, eh, Solemn?”

Bull limps down to a cupboard and comes back with a dirty piece of paper, which he hands to Dirty. It says:

“I go way to bust up bob-tail. This dam town make me sick. My gun is wrong size; so I take your gun and shells. Also for your rifle I take all .50-110 shell. Much oblige.”

“What he mean?” asked Bull.

“He took your gun and shells, ’cause his gun was the wrong size. He must have taken your rifle and some ammunition. Sell me a box of .44’s, Bull.”

“De sonn-of-a-gonn!” snorted Bull. “He tak’ giant powdair, too, eh?”

He folds up the paper and walks around behind the counter.

“You say you wan’—sacre! Everyt’ing she’s gone! No ca’tridge lef’! De sonn-of-a-gonn take everyt’ing!”

Bull snapped his gun open and dropped it on the counter.

“She’s so good like fish-pole!” says he disgusted-like.

“Ain’t you got no shells at all, Bull?” asks Solemn.

“Sure. I’m got one box for .22 and one box ten gage shotgun. You want to buy, Solemn?”

And right then Horse Heaven hunted the ammunition wagon. We hears a rattle at the door, a spattering of shots, and three men skidded into the door of the store. They’re three as tough-looking hombres as I ever seen. They shakes themselves for possible bullet holes and then walks closer to us.

“All the .44 shells you’ve got, Bull,” says the tallest one, glaring at us. “I said ‘all,’ Frenchy!”

“I hear your voice, ‘Snap,’” says Bull, shaking his shoulders. “Me, I’m got no shell. Bill La Fond, she’s swipe all my shell.”

“Don’t lie!” snaps the feller.

“Jus’ de same as before,” says Bull, and they sort of groans.

“How many shells did ‘Flash’ Findlay and ‘Jap’ Slack buy today?” asks one of them.

“None. For two day I mak’ no sale.”

Nobody has anything to say for a while, and then Bull grins and says—

“Snap, I’m hear that Flash Findlay say she’s tak’ your scalp soon. She’s ask the undertaker to have nice casket ready. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Ha, ha, ha!” mimics Snap mean-like. “If I had a shell left, I’d massacree you, Bull.”

“Sure,” grins Bull. “If I have one lef’, Snap, you never get in here.”

“Nobody got a danged shell left?” wails one of Snap’s gang.

“Strangers excepted,” grins Dirty Shirt.

“Daw-w-w-w-w—gone!” drawls Solemn. “This one called Dirty Shirt picked the bowl off Bull’s pipe at a hundred feet. Shot from his hip, too.”

“My pardner, Ike Harper, taught me how to shoot thataway,” says Dirty, nodding at me, and Solemn says sad-like:

“Gents, let me make you used to the Pirates from Piperock.”

“Pirates?” asks Snap, like he hadn’t heard.

“Regular reptiles,” admits Dirty. “Me and Ike was born in the cane-brakes and rocked in a bark cradle. We’re whalebone warp and rawhide filling, and them what sabes our past orates that we’re the pizenest old pair of pelicans that ever made a track in the sand. We don’t like your town; we don’t like your manners; and you’re the worst shots we ever seen.”

“We asks your pardon,” says Snap apologetic-like. “There ain’t none of us what you’d designate as fancy shots.”

“You don’t even support an undertaker in style,” says I.

“We never invited him up here. Fried Egg Freeman passed out with the original ghoul, and this one, being a relative, naturally inherits.”

“You see Beel La Fond?” asks Bull. “She’s take everyt’ing.”

“Him and Poetry Peters are cooking up devilment,” says a hombre, whose face contradicts that he ever had a decent thought.

“Them two opines that the morals of—” begins Snap, and just then cometh the earthquake.

The store almost shakes off the hill, and we walks circles like a lot of drunks. Something crashes down in the middle of Broadway, and Snap makes a wobbly rush for the door.

“Wh-what is she?” stutters Bull.

Snap’s mustache sticks out like a handful of needles when he turns to us.

“What is she?” he parrots. “That—” he waves his hand toward the door. “That is the whole danged front of the Ace of Diamonds!”

“That’s some of Flash Findlay’s work!” yelps one of the gang. “As soon as we comes down here, he dynamites the place!”

“I’m going right up there and smoke him out!” declares Snap. “I’m going to chase the coyote into a hole and plug it up.”

“Without a shell in your gun?” asks Bull.

Just then comes a rattle of footsteps on the porch, and into the door comes three men. Two of them falls flat in the doorway, and the other one falls over them as they try to go back.

“Don’t shoot, Snap!” yelps one, holding up his hands. “We ain’t got a shell left.”

“You ain’t lying, Flash?”

“Lying ——! Do you think I’d hold up my hands to a lousy coyote like you if I had anything left to shoot with? Give me a box of shells, Bull, and I’ll agree not to load up before I get out of range.”

“Nobody got any shell, Flash,” says Bull. “Every gun is empty.”

“Strangers excepted,” corrects Solemn.

“Gone?” says one of Flash Findlay’s gang foolish-like. “You——”

Blooey!

I seen the goods falling off the shelves just before the counter seems to kick my feet from under me, and something seems to come along and almost obliterate the front of the store. I lands on my neck behind the counter, where a kerosene can seems to irrigate me plentiful. The shelves on the far side have all pulled loose and laid down on the job, and, as far as I can see, me and Dirty are the only survivors.

“Dirty,” says I, “what kind of a town are we in?”

“I reckon she’s a place where they have Fourth of July every day in the week.” And just then a section of them shelves seems to rise up a little, and folks begin to appear.

Flash gets up with a water-bucket hanging around his neck and staggers to the door—or what is left of it—and peers out.

“Hah!” he squeaks, pointing across the way.

Me and Dirty pilgrims over and looks out. There’s one corner and the whole front of a building hanging on a pinnacle of rock across the street, and the sign, a big King of Clubs, hangs drunk-like from the top.

“My place!” yelps Flash. “My place!”

“Yeah?” says Dirty indifferent-like. “Why don’t you stay home and take care of your property?”

“Who—who—who—” stammers Snap, trying to pull a frying-pan out from under the back of his vest.

“Daw-w-w-w-w-w—gone!” wails Solemn. “Some shake!”

“I—I know who done it!” yelps Flash. “It was them danged anarchists from the Queen of Spades!”

“That’s a danged lie!”

We turns and faces a couple of hombres who have sneaked into the back door. They look like they had spent a season doing flip-flops into the Grand Cañon.

“That’s a killing statement, ‘Limpy,’” says Flash.

“Go ahead,” says the other fellow indifferent-like. “Killing ain’t nothing to fear.”

“I didn’t come to kill,” says Limpy. “I’m out of shells.”

“No shell,” says Bull. “Nobody she’s got any, Limpy.”

“Except the strangers,” says Solemn. “Daw-w-w-w-w—gone!”

“We runs out of cartridges; so we abdicates,” explains Limpy. “Somebody has been whanging lead into the front of my place for ten minutes. Somebody has sneaked out into the rocks and is bombarding my place with a big rifle, and we stayed as long as possible. All I ask is a——”

Zowie!

The place shudders like it had hit zero without clothes, and the shudder seems to say, “Gents, be seated!”

Some took seats—others stood on the back of their necks. Then comes sort of a swishing noise, and I gets a glimpse of everything coming in and nothing going out. Something seems to lean against me at about forty miles per hour, and the next thing I know I’m out in the street walking circles. I manages to slow down after a while, and somebody bumps into me.

“Ex-cuse me,” says Dirty, taking off his hat. “Dice nay.”

“How many?” pants a voice, and Tombstone is with us. He points at the store and does sort of a joyful shuffle. “How many passed out?”

“Two,” says I. “Me and Dirty Shirt Jones.”

“How many died?” he whispers.

We looks over at the store to sort of make a rough estimate, and them shocked gamblers begin to come out of there, two by two like the animals out of the ark. They’re all able to walk, but none of ’em seems to have sense enough to stop or know where they’re headed for.

Flash and Snap walked right off the end of Broadway, locked in each other’s arms. Later we seen ’em far down the trail, limping away like two lost souls hunting for peace. Limpy and Bull tried to get into the remnants of the King of Clubs but bumped into the rock and sat down.

One couple got headed right and poked into the Ten of Hearts, and the rest, like a herd of sheep, follered in their footsteps. Then comes Solemn, all alone, walking like a man who sees far beyond the present writing. He acts like he was taking us into a great secret, when he limps up to us and whispers—

“The Queen of Spades is no more!”

“No more than the two saloons that went before,” agrees Dirty.

“Daw-w-w-w-w—gone! That’s true. I wonders why them palaces of vice arise on the wings of the morning, gents? If this keeps up, we’re lost!”

“Is anybody here worth saving?” I asks, and Solemn shakes his head.

“Not even us, I reckon. Let’s see if there’s an unbroken drink in the Ten of Hearts.”

Tombstone went with us, and the four of us invades that place, where we finds what is left of Horse Heaven, leaning on the furniture. The windows of the place are all busted, and glass is over everything. A roulette wheel is hanging to a busted chandelier, and the bar mirror looks like some hard-rock miners had been testing their powder on it.

“The guilty party or parties must be among us,” states a long-mustached hombre judicial-like. “It ain’t noways possible that them places went up by spontaneous combustion.”

“They was mean enough to bust,” states another voice, and a feller from the Ace of Diamonds steps out and reaches for his gun.

“If meanness busts ’em, this dump wouldn’t stay put long enough to move in the furniture!” he yelps, and there comes two clicks.

“Daw-w-w-w-w—gone!” grunts Solemn. “You Ten of Hearters out of shells, too?”

“Is everybody?” asks the long-mustached hombre.

“All but the strangers.”

Dirty Shirt pounds on the bar with his gun and squints around at that bunch of blank expressions.

“Gents, I wish an explanation,” says Dirty. “Among you is a natural born anarchist who deserves punishment or a medal, and right now we holds court to discover said person or persons.”

“I’ll be the judge,” says the judicial hombre. “I used to be a lawyer.”

“You must ’a’ been mighty young,” states a voice. “I’ve knowed you for twenty years, and during that time you ain’t done nothing but steal cows.”

“I’ll be the judge,” says Dirty Shirt, “and Ike Harper will be the jury. Sabe?”

He stands ’em all up against the wall and then sets down on a table.

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! This court is doing business.”

“I’ll prosecute,” suggests the ex-lawyer.

“You’ll defend—yourself!” yelps Dirty. “Guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty—dang you!”

“He’s likely lying,” says a hombre from the Queen of Spades.

“Jury, you have the evidence,” says Dirty. “What’s the verdict?”

“Likely,” says I, and Dirty nods.

“Sentenced to walk the plank.”

“Walk the plank?” yelps the prisoner. “What do you mean, feller?”

“Judge!” snaps Dirty, covering him. “Don’t you call me ‘feller’!”

“All right—Judge!”

“I mean,” says Dirty wise-like, “I mean that I’m going to set a precedent for coming pirates to shoot at. Instead of walking ’em off a plank into soft water, I’m going to have ’em led to the end of Broadway and kicked off the edge. Sabe?”

“That ain’t justice!” yells a Ten of Hearts gambler indignant-like. “If we had a shell left——”

“Two to go, Ike,” says Dirty. “Same charge and same sentence.”

“I’d admire to be a helper,” says a feller from the King of Clubs. “I sure can kick.”

“I asks for the job through mercenary motives,” says another, and I appoints ’em both on the spot.

We prods them two protesters to the edge of the avenue, and I sets down on a rock and sees the sentence of the law carried out. Them two hits the downward trail and don’t even look back.

Dirty is setting in state, fondling his gun, when we show up.

“Somebody has turned State’s evidence against your helpers while you was out,” says he. “Same sentence, same place and harder if anything.”

My assistants howled at the top of their voices, but I took two joyful crap-shooters from the Queen of Spades as my assistants, and my prisoners bowed their heads to the inevitable.

As we starts out of the door, a hunk of lead lifts splinters out from under our feet, and we goes up high.

“Somebody bushwhacking the courthouse,” says Dirty. “Go ahead and dispose of that batch, Ike.”

That bushwhacker was too promiscuous, if anybody asks me. Three times during that trip we got shot at. Them prisoners acts mean-like at the gallows, but they ain’t got no visible means of defense; so they follers the lead of the men they kicked over.

A bullet enters the door with us and rips the green cloth on the judge’s table, and from far away comes the whang of that danged rifle.

“She’s Beel La Fond,” says Bull, who has managed to make his way into the place. “Dat’s my .50-110. What for she’s shoot all time? I’m weesh I have my powdair back—ba gar!”

“The law is too slow, Dirty,” says I. “Pretty soon that fool Frenchman will get the elevation right and hurt somebody. Can’t you sort of lump the cases and have it over with?”

“Thanks, Ike,” and he stands up. “Guilty or not guilty? Nobody says a word; so silence must give consent.”

“Who you trying?” asks Solemn.

“All but you and Bull and Tombstone,” says Dirty. “We know that you are innocent; so we hires you to do the kicking. Sabe?”

“Daw-w-w-w-w—gone!”

“Me, I’m got friends in there,” says Bull. “You hire somebody else.”

“Well,” says Dirty, “you can trade places with one of your friends, Bull.”

“Non,” says Bull sad-like. “She’s so long as she is wide.”

Thereupon me and Dirty has to back against the wall and almost kill somebody. The remaining members of that ill-fated village gets peevish and cross, but a six-gun is a hi-yu argument, and we shows ’em the error of their ways.

Bull can kick. He picks out his victims, and I’d tell a man that none of them can claim friendship with that big Frenchman. Tombstone is too small to be of much assistance, and Solemn is too sad. Me and Dirty sets there and watches them crooked gamblers and gunmen hit the slide down Broadway, pick themselves up and pilgrim along down the trail, and our system gets bathed in the most beautiful flood of profanity I ever heard.

Then the four of us went back to the Ten of Hearts to wash the taste out of our mouths. A bullet wanders in and busts up our party, but we sets down behind the remains of the bar.

“Dem bullet she’s exploder kind,” explains Bull, when one of ’em bumps into the steps. “Beel La Fond, she’s tak’ all my shell, and she don’t pay me for dem five boxes powdair. She’s tak’ my rifle too. Dem is bad gun—ba gar! Shoot deer—bam! Bullet she’s bus’ and deer lose all her wind.”

We listens to another bullet bust into the place.

“Poetry, she’s sore at Horse Heaven,” explains Bull. “She’s make beeg money in Hondo Creek, and den she’s play here. Tinhorn she’s lay for heem, and he lose it all. She’s say de wheel in de Queen of Spades is crook; she’s say crooked dealer in Ace of Diamonds; she’s say cold deck in King of Clubs; she’s say—too much. Sabe?

“Tinhorns put tar on Poetry, put on plenty feather and den say: ‘Whooee! Fly away, beeg bird!’”

Bull snaps his fingers and takes another drink.

“Den dey keek heem off de rock. Me, I’m t’ink Poetry she’s sore.”

Me and Dirty gets up and slides toward the front. Makes a feller feel sort of loose inside when he expects an ounce of lead to hive up in him any minute. We peers out.

Another bullet whangs into the porch, and off across the gulch we sees two figures on a rock.

“Maybe you drive heem away, eh?” asks Bull.

“At that range?” grunts Dirty, leaning out of the door. “All his shots are low, Ike. Wonder what he’s——”

Dirty jumps back inside, whirls around and gallops for the back of the room. Something seems to tell us to foller suit, and the bunch of us hits the door at the same time. It’s locked!

We mills for a second, and then the Ten of Hearts seems to hop out from under us. Something seems to play a solo on my eardrums, and I hears a lot of applause. I responds with a polite bow, and just then I discovers that the applause consists of several hundred feet of rough lumber, coming down from above and clattering around me. I walks out of there with a mineral water picture frame around my neck and a limp in both legs.

I walks out on Broadway and looks at Horse Heaven. There’s only one building intact—the undertaking shop. I sees a figure get up in the street below me, tack back and forth across the street until it comes to the jumping-off place, but it don’t jump. Nope; it just leans over and lets gravity take its course. From the contour of the critter I’d opine it to be Tombstone.

While I’m looking things over, I sees a pile of tar-paper arise, and from under it comes Bull and Solemn. They looks around with unseeing eyes and stumbles into the street.

“She’s beeg night!” declares Bull. “What you t’ink?”

“Daw-w-w-w—gone!” drawls Solemn. “I’m about half out of work.”

“Speaking about powder,” says a voice behind us, and there is Dirty Shirt.

His shirt has been blowed plumb up around his neck, and his pants have been blowed just about as far the other way. He’s got a cut over one eye, and the rest of his face looks like it had rooted in a stove.

“Yah!” grunts Bull. “She’s tak’ away six box powdair, and——”

“And left one in front of each place!” groans Dirty. “Then he gets back there with that danged rifle and explodes ’em. I seen that box on the porch.”

“Daw-w-w-w—gone!” grunts Solemn.

Another bullet rattles off a rock beside us.

“Forward march!” yelps Dirty, tugging at his pants. “You hombres want to get killed?”

“Shut up!” snapped Bull belligerent-like. “Maybe you can boss tinhorn, but you can’t boss me. Smart, eh?”

He yanks out a gun and points it at us.

“Pirates! Ba gar, I’m pirate you! I take Dirty Shirt’s gun in saloon. Sabe? Now we see who keek off street, eh, Solemn?”

“Daw-w-w-w—gone!”

“You help me, eh, Solemn?”

“I’ll kick,” nods Solemn. “Daw-w-w-w—gone!”

I’ve got my hands up, but Dirty is still trying to get his shirt and pants to meet and ain’t acting concerned at all.

“What’ll we do, Dirty?” I asks.

“Do?” he grunts. “Shoot the blamed fool, Ike. That gun is empty.” Bull snaps that gun all the way around before he gets the idea, and then he swears in French.

“What do you think now, Solemn?” I asks.

“I ain’t got no kick coming,” says he sad-like. “Daw-w-w-w—gone!”

“What’ll we do with ’em, Dirty?” I asks.

“Make ’em walk the plank, Ike.”

We flips a coin to see who gets to kick Bull, and I lost. I’m glad. I didn’t have much against Solemn Sales, but at that I sprained my ankle a little. Me and Dirty sets down at the top and watches Bull and Solemn pilgrim down the trail. They acts like they was going to stop at Tombstone’s place, but all to once they starts limping fast down the trail, and we hears that rifle banging away again.

Then we sees Tombstone lope out of his door and go hippety-hopping off down the trail like a rabbit with sore feet.

“Some—” begins Dirty, and just then we sees the undertaking shop leave its moorings and ride away in a cloud of smoke.

The rocks rain around us, and we seen a casket sail high into the air and crash down below us in the rocks, and something else seems to hit the rocks with a metallic whang. Then the smoke clears away, and Horse Heaven is only a memory.

“That sixth box of powder!” grunts Dirty.

We sets there and smokes for a while and kicks our heels against the ledge.

“It sure was a real cleaning, Ike,” says Dirty. “It sure was.”

“It will be,” says a voice behind us, and we cranes our necks.

There stands a fat-faced hombre, and around his neck is a suspicion of tar, and beside him is a tall, skinny one, with a bushy lot of whiskers on his face.

“Stand up!” snaps the tall feller, pointing his rifle at us, and we follered directions.

“Face down the hill!”

I never will again. His toe caught me right where he intended for it to, and I never stopped skidding until I stops with both feet in that busted casket. Dirty beat me by a nose.

We sets there for a few minutes and waits for the burning sensation to leave, and then Dirty stumbles to his feet. Beside us is that poetry rock.

I think that some day I will come and put you bad-men on the bum: That will be swell. Then me and you, who’ve stood the shocks and peddled lead from behind rocks and dodged and ducked from morn ’til night and shot at everything in sight, can rise right up amid the dust and make a better town or bust. But ’til I do I’ll keep away, and to ye all I hereby say—

Horse Heaven go to ——!

“Very well,” says Dirty feelingly, and then he stoops over and picks up that metallic object out of the boulders and stands it up on top of the rock. It is a casket epitaph and reads—

We looks back at the top of the hill, and there sets them two hombres, like a pair of buzzards. We waves at ’em and pilgrims on.

“Some day, Ike!” grunts Dirty. “Some day! Making them hombres walk the plank was the best job a pair of pirates ever done. Me and you got there at the right time, Ike. Suppose we’d got there on a day when there was plenty of shells?”

“Speaking of shells,” says I. “Reminds me of your empty gun.”

“Nerve, Ike,” he grins. “Ha, ha, ha! Me passing out judgment with an empty gun, but I knowed I could depend on you, old-timer.”

“For what, Dirty?” I asks.

“What for?” he yells. “Why—well, my gun was empty, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t need to yell at me, Dirty Shirt,” says I. “I ain’t hard of hearing. Mine was empty, too.”