HELPED BY A HORSE DOCTOR

In the middle of the cabin stood Magpie Simpkins, my pardner, and facing him is a fat hombre, dressed like a cross between a short-card artist and a perfume pedler. They don’t see me. From the expression on their faces, I’d say that their minds are null and void as far as I’m concerned.

Magpie ain’t got no gun on his hip, which is unusual, and I can see by the expression in his eyes that he’s laboring under a heavy strain.

The fat feller lifts one hand above his head, spreads the fingers and then shuts all but two. Magpie gazes upon that hand with awe in his eyes, and then up goes the fat feller’s other hand with the first and second fingers crossed. Then the fat man drops his right hand and rubs his finger across his nose.

Magpie’s eyes are as wide as saucers and the perspiration seems to gather on his noble brow. Then Magpie lifts his right hand even with his ear, sticks his thumb in said ear and wiggles his fingers.

All to once I gets the solution of the mystery. This fat feller is one of them hypnotist hombres, and he’s got poor Magpie into a spell.

With the Harper tribe, to think is to act so I bent my gun over the hypnotist’s head. He slumps to the floor and Magpie stares at me, leaning on our table to support his wobbly legs.

“As soon as he gets rational I’ll have him snap his fingers and bring you back,” says I, rolling a smoke.

Magpie stares at me.

“Yeah?” says he foolish-like. “Bring me back?”

“Uh-huh. Just take it easy, old-timer. You likely think you’re Napoleon Bonaparte or Paul Revere right now, so I won’t start no arguments. Just hang on to yourself and I’ll hoodle this here brain-mixer into bringing you up to date. Sabe?”

I don’t know yet what Magpie hit me with, but I suspicion the sirup pitcher, it being the only thing of that weight on the table. I fell plumb out into the yard and retaliates by heezing three .44’s through the closed door. I felt insulted a lot. I went up to see Doc Milliken, the horse doctor, and he takes three stitches in my alabaster brow with a sack-needle and binding-twine.

I asks him what he knows about hypnotism, and he says—

“Ike, you wasn’t hypnotized—you was assassinatized.”

I asks him if a feller could be hypnotized to such an extent that he’d throw a pitcher at his best friend.

“Well,” says Doc, “I reckon he would. A feller you can stick pins into without hurting him is liable to do anything. You see, Ike, his mind could be influenced by the hypnotist. Did Magpie hit you?”

“According to science, Doc, it wasn’t Magpie throwed the pitcher, but he must ’a’ been influenced by another party.”

“Yeah,” says Doc. “After looking at the cut you got, Ike, I’d say it was the Democrat or Republican party.”

Then I meets “Dirty Shirt” Jones. Dirty looks me over careful-like.

“Somebody been loving you with a rock, or had you proved the assertion that familiarity breeds contempt and stroked that danged jassack of yours from the rear? You ought to get a divorce from that pet. Some day he’ll kick you so hard that folks will say, ‘The poor devil would be a lot better off if the grim reaper would come along and harvest his soul.’”

“I got this through Magpie,” says I.

“My ——! He must be a mess, Ike!”

“You don’t sabe, Dirty. He was responsible but not accountable. Another mind influenced him.”

“Somebody told him to do it?”

“Transmigration of thought.”

“Did Magpie tell you this, Ike?”

“Doc Milliken explains the principles.”

“Well, you —— fool!” snorts Dirty. “A feller busts your head open and a horse doctor explains why, and you kiss everybody. Well, well! This being the time of the year that a snake sheds its skin and becomes so obstreperous that it strikes at everything, let’s me and you inoculate ourselves against such freaks of nature. A stitch in time is worth a pound of beans in the hand.”

“Dirty, you’d intoxicate any snake that would be brave enough to strike you. You’re already inoculated against everything.”

Dirty lifts out his old Colt, spins the cylinder and rings the bell on the Mint Hall three times in a row, and grins:

“Not yet, Ike. Wait till I miss one out of three.”

Inside Buck’s place we finds “Mighty” Jones standing on the rail and orating aloud. He’s saying:

“Not by a —— sight! Don’t believe in it. I’m strong for a Vigilance Committee and I’ll help lynch anybody, but I won’t be part and parcel to no danged secret nor underground society.”

“I’ll join the Vigilantes,” says Dirty. “I’m against everything but hanging. What’s the oration all about, Mighty?”

“Mighty is anti everything,” says Buck. “He’s one of them mavericks who is wishful to heave a monkey-wrench into the machinery of progress. Ain’t it a fact, Magpie?”

We turns and gazes upon Magpie, leaning against the doorway.

“I’d say you wasn’t missing the mark much,” admits Magpie, “but Mighty ain’t alone. Seems to me there is lots of others who sort of backfire on anything pertaining to progress.”

“Meaning me, I suppose,” says I. “That’s why you leans a heavy pitcher upon my brow and never even looks to see if I’m dead or not.”

“The dead don’t splinter a man’s door with lead, Ike,” says he.

“You proved—howdy, judge.”

“Tol’able,” admits Judge Steele, coming in. “How goes the fraternity?”

“Great,” admits Magpie. “I’ve took it all and I’m ordained to pass it on. Just finished in time, too, ’cause that rat-headed hooch-hound, over there—”meaning me—“bent his gun over the dome of the Exalted, Most Generous High and Mighty Ruler of the Universe, and it sort of slowed things up.

“Then the danged fool shot three times through the door and the Exalted person removed one of my window frames as he went out. But I got all the dope.”

“Charter?” asked the judge.

“Betcha. Everything is hunkydory, judge.”

“’Tis a day of thanksgiving,” says the judge pious-like. “I will propose that we rise and drink a toast to the Piperock branch of the Loyal Legion of Lizards. Gents, take off your hats and stand uncovered before Mister Simpkins, the Grand—uh—what is it all, Magpie?”

“Unlimited, Imperial, Unrestrained, Perfect, Exalted, Grand——”

“Whoa!” yelps Dirty Shirt, cocking his gun. “Stop that, Magpie! You can’t talk that way and——”

“You’re drunk, Dirty,” says Magpie disgusted-like.

Dirty blinks his eyes and rocks on his heels. Then he steps outside, shoots three times at the bell and misses all three. Then he steps to the door and bows.

“Gents, I apologize—I’m drunk.”

---

I’m sitting down on the sidewalk, thinking over the sins of mankind, when all to once comes an awful crash in Buck’s place and Mighty Jones skids out on his shoulders. He turns around, drapes his feet over the edge of the sidewalk and feels of his neck.

“Stumble coming out?” I asks.

“Ike, did you ever hear the story about the feller who draped himself over a bar and says out loud, ‘I can lick any man in the house.’ Nobody said anything, so he says, ‘I can lick any man in the town.’ Everything is peaceful, so he gets brave and says, ‘I can lick any man in the county.’ But that don’t get results. Then he gets awful humpy and says, ‘I can lick any man in the State!’ He gets busted wide open by a little feller. When he gets normal he says, ‘I covered too much territory.’”

“What did you say, Mighty?” I asks.

“Me? Huh! I said I never seen the lodge I couldn’t lick.”

Then cometh “Hassayampa” Harris from Curlew. He sets down with us and Mighty opens up on him like this:

“Hassayampa, secret societies are the bane of existence. ’Cause why? When you becomes a member of a society you forgets your duty to mankind. Supposing a horse-thief joins? They’re eligible, as long as they’re all right morally. Then he steals a horse. Is a brother member going to squeal on him? No, sir! Hoss-stealing becomes a cinch under them conditions and it ain’t long before each and every one of that society are rustlers.”

“Which is logic, but not explanatory,” admits Hassayampa. “Who brings us the society idea, Mighty?”

“I does,” says Magpie, who has come up behind us. “I am knowed officially as the Unlimited, Imperial, Unrestrained, Perfect, Grand Protector of the Temple of Piperock.”

“My ——!” gasps Hassayampa. “You are? Well, you’re about all you can ever expect to be in this life, Magpie. What temple are you supposed to protect?”

“The Imperial Temple of the Loyal Legion of Lizards.”

Hassayampa opens his mouth to say something and then fusses in his pocket until he finds a piece of paper. He looks at us and then reads:

“Beans, flour, hominy, prunes, bacon and dried apples. Thank gosh, I’m still sane enough to read my supply list. So-long.”

Hassayampa crosses the street. I says to Magpie—

“What did that title cost you, Unlimited?”

“The complete instructions, et cettery, cost me one hundred dollars.”

“How do yuh reckon you’re going to get even?”

“Even! Say, Ike, it’s the biggest proposition you ever seen. Come on down to the cabin and I’ll explain. I figure you in on this, old-timer, and I excuse you for making me hit you with that pitcher.”

“You’re welcome, but don’t figure me, Magpie. I’ll go down to the cabin and move out my other overalls and boots. I’m all through, finished and done. Sabe?”

“Not after you sees into the scheme, Ike. She’s a mint.”

“Scenery” Sims is there at the cabin and him and Magpie goes through them motions with their fingers.

“What’s his title?” I asks.

“Scenery is the Grand Imperial Chancellor of the Temple.”

“Any more titled snake-hunters around here?”

“We’re the only two,” squeaks Scenery. “We’re om-nippy-tent, ain’t we, Magpie?”

“Yea. We are the forerunners of a great enterprise, Scenery.”

“You’re a pair of half-witted woodchucks,” says I, hunting for my extra pair of boots. “What is the big idea?”

“Never mind them old boots,” says Magpie. “Set down here at the table and let me explain it to you. Now, Ike, I asks you to tell me how many Piperockers has shuffled off this mortal coil in the last two years.”

“Why ask me about death?” I asks.

“None,” squeaks Scenery like he’d discovered a new island.

“Some danged close calls,” says I.

“Close don’t count in nothing but pitching horse-shoes,” says Magpie. “Here is the idea: The Loyal Legion of Lizards is what is knowed as a benevolent order. It means life insurance, Ike. Me and Scenery has figured it all out. We paid a hundred dollars for the charter and business, and the benevolent part is all our own doings. I got the blanks printed at Silver Bend.

“A feller comes to us and says, ‘I am wishful to become a Lizard.’ He gets examined by Doc Milliken, who looks him over for symptoms of spavin, et cettery, and if he passes we initiates him into the order.

“Then he pays us five dollars a month and we agrees to pay him, at the time of his demise, five hundred dollars in a lump. We has plans to give Thatcher’s orchestra a membership free, which don’t insure them, and also a free membership to the Cross J quartet. By so doing we has our music furnished free, and we sure has a quartet which can sing at funerals.”

“Not at mine,” says I. “I want a quiet funeral, without no casualties but me.”

“Ain’t she some scheme, Ike?” asks Magpie. “Suppose we gets a hundred men to join. That’s five hundred a month, ain’t it? Ain’t that six thousand per year?”

“Where do I come in, Magpie?” I asks.

“You’ve got three hundred in the bank, ain’t you? We’ll give you a title and let you in on a third interest. Sabe?”

“Not with my money, Magpie! Not a chance in the world. That little old grubstake stays right there. Sabe? You’ve got a siren’s voice, but this time my ears are full of alkali dust. My manitou says for me to hang on to what I’ve got, and my medicine is good. This is one time that Ike Harper don’t assay a trace of affection for your nice little scheme.”

Magpie gets up and leans across the table.

“Ike, do you mean to set there and tell me that you refuse riches?

“Ain’t you got foresight enough to see yourself setting on a plush chair while the money rolls in? Think, you —— fool! Me and you has been pardners in misery so long that I’d almost go down on my knees and beg you to come in with us, but I won’t do it, Ike. Nope. No, I won’t go down on my knees to you, you ossified hoot-owl. Do you know what I am going to do, Ike?”

“Yes,” says I, “I know. What is my position in the scheme?”

“Now, that’s talking sense, Ike. You’ll be engaged in going out among ’em, and talking ’em into the fold. You will describe the beauties of the Legion until they begs to be let in.”

“In plain United States, I pays three hundred for a pedler’s license, eh? How many members has you got already?”

“None. The field is virgin, brother. We’ll open for business in the Mint Hall tonight; so go ye out and gather them in.”

“Is anybody barred?”

“Not to begin with. We may find flaws in their title later on.”

“You’ve wished wealth upon yourself,” squeaks Scenery.

“Yeah, that may be,” says I, “but I won’t live to enjoy it.”

“Write yourself a policy,” advises Scenery, but I slammed the door and went towards town. I ain’t been in Piperock for two months, but she ain’t changed none. I thinks over my three hundred dollars, and looks at the bunch of application blanks in my hand. I figures that a life-insurance agent in Piperock has got about much chance as a jassack has in the Suburban Handicap.

---

Piperock looks as peaceful as a dove. In fact, she looks too peaceful. She looked natural when I was there a few hours before, but right now she’s unnatural. In the middle of the street lays a stiff-brim Stetson hat, and it spins and rolls in the wind like a roulette wheel on a busted spindle.

Comes the snap of a gun and the hat hops high and lights flat on the brim, like it defied anybody to move it again. From the entrance of the Mint Hall comes the wailing yell:

“You hit that hat again and I’ll massacree yuh! I resign! Dang it, I tell yuh I resign!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three bullets cuts splinters out of Buck’s door.

Bang! Bang!

I sees the splinters fly from Pete Gonyer’s blacksmith-shop door.

Bang! Bang!

I hears a couple of bullets spin off the sidewalk down by Ricky Henderson’s barber-shop. I figures it’s about time for me to find an ambush; so I kicks Wick Smith’s store door open and falls inside. A couple of bullets whisper to me as I go in, but I don’t reply, ’cause I don’t know what to say.

Wick is in there, stuffing shells into his pockets, and he tosses me a new box of .44’s. I sets down behind a keg of nails.

“What seems to be the argument?” I asks.

“Council meeting.”

“Injuns?”

“Naw! Injuns got sense. If you see ‘Tombstone’ Todd, ‘Ornery’ Olsen or ‘Half-Mile’ Smith—kill’m, Ike.”

“You sure are filled with sweet thoughts, Wick,” says I. “Tell me what council you’re talking about.”

Wick stops stuffing shells into a rifle and stares at me.

“You been away, ain’t you, Ike? Thought so. Piperock is incorporated.

“Yes, sir. Got a mayor, aldermen, et cettery. I’m the mayor.”

“Oh! That’s the reason everybody is trying to kill everybody else, eh? Political battle?”

“Naw! I makes a motion that we puts a city tax on horse-thieves, cow-rustlers, et cettery, and them three hombres I mentioned got up and squalled at me for trying to put the population out of business. I signed the ordinance, proclaimed it as passed and then fell out of the second-story window. I went there without a gun, like a danged fool.

“Mighty Jones gets up and states that he is in favor of getting us a judge who is more addicted to justice than to cactus juice. Judge Steele hammers Mighty on the head with his cane, the same of which makes Mighty act childish with his gun. He misses the judge and hits Pete Gonyer in the watch. Uh-huh. It ruins Pete’s Swiss timepiece, and his anger rises. Pete and the judge are over in Pete’s shop, shooting at Mighty, who is under the sidewalk in front of Ricky’s place.

“‘Old Testament’ Tilton asks that we pass an ordinance making it a felony to sell liquor in the city limits, and now he’s up in Sam Holt’s hay-mow, while Buck sets down below with a shotgun waiting for Testament to change his mind.”

“Who is up in the Mint Stairway?”

“I don’t know, Ike, but it’s likely ‘Doughgod’ Smith, the marshal. Every time somebody shoots at him he resigns. He’s resigned eight times since I jumped out of the window. Now, Ike, who are you for?”

“Me,” says I, “I’m going to sell ’em life insurance, Wick.”

“For why is that?” asks Wick interested-like.

“Protection. Costs you five per month while you live, and when you die you get five hundred.”

“After I’m dead? That’s a —— of a lot of good, after I’m dead.”

“The city won’t have to bury you, Wick.”

“I could pack dynamite in my pocket and get the same results, Ike.”

He shoots a few times at Buck’s place, takes a fresh chew and loads up.

“Nossir, I don’t need protection—but them three does. I sure am going to blow out their candles.”

“Good!” says I. “Here’s a idea; why not take out insurance for all three of them and cash in fifteen hundred to the good? You can bury them for five dollars per head, and that leaves you fourteen hundred and seventy to the good.”

Wick chaws industrious for a while and then:

“Five dollars ought to bury the three, Ike. Can I take ’em out like you say?”

“I ain’t plumb conversant with the details, Wick, but I reckon you can.”

“Write ’em out. Them snake-hunters ain’t going to live no month, but you can keep the difference.”

I ducked bullets to get enough light to write ’em out, and Wick signed all three. Then I sneaked out a back window and around behind Ricky’s shop. Some lead is still seeping around so I rolls a smoke and took it easy. After while I says, fairly loud:

“Mighty Jones! This is Ike speaking.”

“Bring me some .44’s, Ike,” comes a muffled voice. “Help out a good cause. Play snake or lose your head.”

I manages to angle under the sidewalk and give him the shells.

“Mighty, who’d bury you if you got killed?” I asks.

He fills his gun thoughtful-like.

“Never gave it a thought, Ike. Friends, I reckon.”

“Friends in life may renege in death.”

“You sure touches me deep-like, Ike.”

“Sure. Maybe they just dig a hole, throw you in and say, ‘Here goes nothing,’ or they might put you in a pauper’s grave.”

“What is a pauper, Ike?”

I made a guess and says—

“A retired sheepherder.”

Mighty picks some splinters out of his whiskers and sends a few shots at the shop door.

“That’s awful, Ike. Ain’t there no way to dodge it?”

“In my hand I has the antidote. Sign on the dotted line. You pay us five dollars a month and we guarantee five hundred when you die.”

“When—I—die? Shucks, I ain’t going to die, and besides that money don’t cheer me none if I do. You better go over and insure that danged judge and blacksmith, Ike.”

“Why don’t you do it? Kill ’em off and collect the thousand.”

Mighty stares at me and nods.

“I’ll do it. Can you change a twenty? Now, keep down when you get out, ’cause I want a witness left to prove it was all legal. Sabe?”

I manages to get behind the shop, where I tells Dirty he’d be safe, but he contends that he’s in better shape to shoot where he is. I peers around at the street but she don’t look safe. I’ve got to get across; so I signs my name to an application, pins a five-dollar bill to same, tightens my belt and hit that street at a mile-a-minute clip. Uh-huh, I got across.

A bullet cut the sack of tobacco out of my hip pocket and another turned my hat around on my head, but I’d ’a’ got across in fine shape if I hadn’t been running regardless and forgot the hitchrack.

---

I must ’a’ been looking back when I hit that rail. I feels a awful pain in my chest and my feet begins to whirl over my head. I reckon I went over twice before I fell loose, and then I walked right into a loose buggy-wheel, which almost spoiled all the future I ever looked forward to.

A loose wheel is peculiar. It never does things according to rule and has a awful way of acting when you step into it. Me and that wheel kept company for quite a while. At times it seemed to want to travel and then again it wanted to lay down on me. It ends up by running across my neck and pulling one of my boots off at the same time.

As a protection to the coming generation I hung the darn thing over a post, and it fell down before I got away, and landed on my feet. Then I got mad, kicked it in the hub with my right knee-cap and went away with the feeling that five dollars per month was very little to pay for a decent burial.

I crawled up to the back door of Buck’s place, knocked and fell flat to let the bullets pass unhampered.

“This is Ike Harper!” I yells.

“Come in,” says Tombstone. “Crawl under the pool table with the rest of us and let Wick waste his lead.”

Tombstone and Half-Mile are on the floor, but Ornery is laying on top of a pile of boxes near the roof, where he can shoot into the tops of Wick’s windows. Every little while a bullet seeps in and travels around a while.

“Who you gunning for, Ike?” asks Tombstone.

“Business. Who’s going to bury you hombres when you die?”

Ornery almost falls off his perch.

“When we die?” asks Half-Mile, fussing with a stuck shell. “Seems to me you’re taking a lot for granted. Who says we’re going to die?”

“Wick Smith predicts it.”

“Wick Smith!” yelps Ornery, sitting up. “That penurious——”

Crash!

The pile of boxes buckles in the middle and Ornery hits the floor on his back. Then he gets up and walks circles like a tired pup, and then sets down on the floor.

“What seemed to occur?” asks Tombstone.

Ornery feels of the top of his head and begins singing soft and low:

“Beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly; beat the dead march as you bear me along. Take me-e-e-e-e out to the prairie-e-e-e-e and lay the sod o’er me-e-e-e-e, for I’m a po-o-o-o-o-o-r cowboy and I know I’ve done wr-r-r-r-r-r-ong.”

“You sure did,” nods Half-Mile, “when you raised up.”

“Knocked senseless,” says Tombstone.

“No, sir,” objects Half-Mile. “He was born thataway. He just couldn’t stand the rattle when the bullet hit his head.”

“A inch higher and the city would have had to bury him,” says I.

“We’re all thataway, I reckon,” grins Tombstone.

“Which is the reason I am here,” says I. “I am prepared to guarantee you five hundred dollars when you die, gents, and it only costs you the measly sum of five dollars per each. Prepare for death.”

“Hurrah for ——! Who’s afraid of fire?” mumbles Ornery.

“Not me,” says Tombstone. “A five in the hand is worth a million when I’m dead. Somebody’d take that five hundred and drink it up, and I’d be lucky to get planted in a hole. Anyway, we’re here to kill—not to get killed.”

“Then consider Wick. Right now he ain’t worth a cent dead. You’d all be called upon to help bury him. Suppose his demise would pay you each five hundred dollars?”

“I—I’ll kuk-kill him for a dollar-eighty,” mutters Ornery, “and——”

“Shut up!” snaps Tombstone. “What’s the idea, Ike?”

I outlines it to them, and they give me three cheers.

“If we don’t kill him this month can we ante again next month?” asks Half-Mile.

“Just as long as it takes you,” says I, and tucks the fifteen into my pocket.

I uses oratory to get an audience with the judge and Pete. I stands at the corner of the building and discourses thusly:

“Gents, I am neutral. I ain’t mad at nobody and my mission is peace on earth and something to bury you with when you die. Can I come in?”

“It’s the voice of Ike Harper but the argument of a undertaker,” says Pete. “Come on in, you danged old pelican.”

I got the anvil between me and Mighty Jones and fills out two more applications.

“Five dollars!” yawps Pete. “Five hundred dollars when I die? Haw! Haw! Haw! Mighty Jones couldn’t hit a flock of passenger trains. Me and the judge has just about got his location figured out and I’ll bet we shuffle him off inside of another box of shells.”

“Yes, and what good will his corpse be to you? Revenge is sweet, but wouldn’t it be sweeter if you could each collect five hundred dollars on his re-mains?”

“My ——!” snorts the judge. “Is there a bounty on him?”

Say, I explained it to them, and I has a hard time getting away. They each wanted to take out two against poor Mighty.

“Do we bring in the whole carcass or just the ears, like they do with coyotes?” asks Pete.

“Better keep all of him until we figures out some system.”

Old Testament was harder to get at. I sneaks to the back of the stable, leans a peeled pole up to the hay window and starts climbing. I figures to see him before I see Buck. It ain’t over thirty feet up that pole, but she’s a long ways when you’re expecting to be assaulted front and rear any minute. I gets one knee over the edge of the window when down on my head comes a fork-handle and I falls inside just in time to get the drag of both barrels of a shotgun from the rear.

I feels that I’m plumb ragged of rear, but the ringing in my ears makes me forget the pain. I seems to hear Buck’s voice saying—

“I’ll teach you to promote a drouth!”

Then I hears Testament say pious-like:

“In the midst of life we are in death.”

“It sure had its stinger working this day and date,” says I.

Testament has got his head and arms out of the hay and is holding a busted fork-handle.

“The wicked shall perish,” says Testament.

“And the innocent shall suffer,” says I, feeling myself.

“I am prepared to die for my convictions,” says he.

“How are you fixed for a funeral?” I asks. “Got plenty left to plant your remains?”

“I may not die. I shall go softly and pray that this fork-handle faileth me not.”

“And just about bust Buck’s head wide open, eh?”

“Yea.”

“And let the city bury him, Testament. Ever ponder on that? It’s all right to kill a man, but a killer ought to bury his dead. Now, here is the idea: You pay us five dollars per month as long as Buck lives and when he dies we’ll give you five hundred dollars. That will give him a decent funeral.”

“It won’t take that much, Ike.”

“You preach the sermon and keep the balance.”

---

I was afraid to slide down that pole. I looks the place over for possibilities—and found one. I decided to tread lightly to the front and peek down at Buck, but in treading lightly over the hay I treaded over a hay-hole, but not lightly enough to keep from going hence.

I grabbed both hands full of hay and then cometh flashing lights, the crashing of thunder and the smell of powder smoke. After while I seems to be coming from under the anesthetic and I shake all over. After while I finds out why I shake.

I’m setting on Buck’s back and he’s acting restless. There’s an old shotgun sticking out of a manger and I feel that it must have went awful high to get there.

I takes out an application, writes Old Testament’s name on it and then rolls Buck over and props him against the manger.

“Did—did anybody gug-get out alive?” he wheezes.

“None,” says I, wrapping his fingers around a pencil. “Sign your name on the dotted line and give me five dollars. I’m taking up a collection for the victims.”

I gets the money, and wraps it with the application.

“You and Testament are about fifty-fifty,” says I. “He busted his fork-handle on my head.”

“I’m gug-glad that the little birds didn’t get hurt,” says he. “Can’t you hear ’em sing?”

I tore up my application on the way home. Magpie and Scenery are doing a lot of figuring but they stop when I comes in.

“Did they swamp you with applications?” asks Magpie.

“I done very well,” says I, and then I says to Scenery, “What kind of a sheriff are you to set here and let the city battle each other?”

“Is there discord up there?”

“Wild and free.”

“None of my business,” says Scenery. “I’m the sheriff of the county. They’ve got a marshal, ain’t they?”

“Did have, but he’s resigned twenty-seven times today.”

“He ain’t got no guts,” says Magpie.

“Well, maybe he ain’t,” says I, “but if he has he’s taking good care of them.”

Magpie digs into that bunch of applications and his eyes get plumb wild. He slides his feet off the table and stares at me.

“Tell me about this discord up-town, Ike.”

I explains the whole thing to him and Scenery and they listens without interrupting me once.

“Selling insurance is a cinch,” says I.

“Yes,” nods Magpie slow-like, “it must ’a’ been. You collected sixty dollars, Ike. The whole sum of sixty dollars, and you imperiled us to the amount of six thousand dollars!”

“What say?” squeaks Scenery.

“Likely put us six thousand dollars in the hole. What was you thinking of, Ike?”

“Death—exclusively. I’m getting ghoulish as ——!”

“Maybe they won’t all die,” squeaks Scenery. “Maybe only half.”

“Three thousand!” groans Magpie.

“Say, how much money has the Legion got?” I asks.

“Three hundred, Ike—not counting this sixty.”

“Three hundred!” I gasps. “I put in three hundred——”

“Uh-huh,” nods Magpie. “That’s it.”

I looks at them and they seem to be looking at me more in sorrow than in anger. I hears Magpie say—

“It is monstrous.”

I says—

“Lizardly speaking, it is Gila monstrous.”

Then Scenery cackles and I went loco. I hate to hear men cackle, especially when they cackle in E-string voices. It sort of sends a message to my trigger finger and I seems to lose sight of the tender things of life. I never was a wizard on pulling a gun. I sets by and watches other fellers practise the swift draw and most of them are gone hence, but there comes a time in every man’s life when he forgets that he’s leisurely with a gun. I forgot.

It was all done fairly quick. I got my hand as far as the butt of that gun and then something seems to explode in my head. When my nervous system gets back to the straight and narrow way, I’m on the floor and beside me with the handle busted off is that danged heavy sirup pitcher. I’ve got a pinnacle swelled up over my right eye which matches the one over the left, and my ears are full of molasses.

I staggered over to the door, but she’s locked on the outside. On the door is a notice which reads:

“For the soul of the man who hit me twice in the same day with a sirup pitcher,” says I.

After while somebody unbolts the door and Doughgod Smith sticks his head inside.

“You sure look like a changed man, Ike,” says he, peering at me. “You look meek and mild.”

“My looks are liars, ’cause I’m feeling like a killer, Doughgod.”

“Different here. I’ve been shot at until I can’t walk slow. I want to resign, but nobody will stand still long enough to accept it.”

“You need a deputy.”

“Aw-w-w-w, I don’t need help! I need relief. I’d kiss any man who would take this job off my hands.”

“I’ll take the job, Doughgod, but not the kiss,” says I.

“Hold up your right hand and be swore!” he gasps.

“Give me that star! What’s an oath between friends?”

“You’ve got to admit to the ‘So help you Gawd,’ Ike.”

“I’ll admit that much, but I’m going to place a lot of confidence in my old .44.”

I got the star and went towards town. It’s getting dark but I’m aiming to get close before I shoot. I finds Dirty Shirt setting in front of Buck’s place, which is dark. The Mint Hall seems to be the only lighted place in town.

“I came back for medical advice, but I can’t find the horse doctor,” says Dirty. “I never missed that bell three times in a row before.”

“Come and help me kill Scenery Sims and Magpie,” says I. “I’m sure going to assassinate them two, Dirty.”

“All right, Ike. I ain’t heard such good news since Dewey whipped the Italians at Rhode Island.”

Bill Thatcher tried to stop us at the door.

“What is the password?” he asks.

I jams my .44 under his chin, and he wilts.

“Pass in, friends,” says he.

---

Then we gets a view of the interior and I forgets that I came to kill. Magpie and Scenery are setting on the platform, each of them with a sawed-off shotgun across their laps. Them blood-hunters are setting around the place as far apart as they can get.

Bill Thatcher, Al Thatcher and “Frenchy” Deschamps, the jew’s-harp virtuoso, are grouped in front of the platform with their discord utensils, and behind them sets “Telescope” Tolliver, “Muley” Bowles, “Chuck” Warner and Henry Peck, the Cross J quartet. Tied to a bench at the rear of the room is one of Mighty Jones’ goats. Me and Dirty takes seats as far as possible from that goat, ’cause we know it’s a cross between a pile-driver and a grizzly bear.

Just then the door of the anteroom opens and Doc Milliken comes out with his sleeves rolled up.

Magpie stands up, cocks both barrels of his annihilator and says:

“Feller Lizards to be—maybe. As I has said to you before, your application is null and void until you has passed medically. Our hired representative erred when he said that all we required was your names, and I wishes to compliment you on your sensibilities on quitting your private feuds until same was settled.

“The eminent doctor is prepared to make minute investigations of your nervous systems and report in detail to us. He may or may not pass you as being whole.”

“I rises to ask a question,” says Buck. “As soon as he notifies us that a victim has passed, do we have a right to shoot and collect the damages?”

“This ain’t no den of murderers,” squeaks Scenery. “You’ll get an even break, Buck.”

Magpie, Scenery and Doc whispers a while, and then Magpie gets up.

“Gents, we’re going to give everybody a square deal. The candidates will be examined as their names are called. After everybody is examined, Doc Milliken will hand me a written list of them what has passed. I will nail the list to the wall, that ye may all read your fate. Testament Tilton is the first lucky man.”

That bunch of belligerents sets there and waits for him to come out. Magpie wraps two fingers around the triggers and studies each one intently.

“Might sing a little song,” offers Muley. “I wrote one for the occasion. What do you think?”

“Take a chance,” squeaks Scenery. “I love music.”

“I moves that they stand up to sing,” says Half-Mile. “I don’t want to make any mistake when I starts shooting.”

They stood up and sang one verse. It went like this:

Old Testament comes walking out and sets down.

“You old psalm-singer!” hisses Buck. “I wish I knowed.”

“Buck Masterson is next,” announces Magpie.

“Thank gosh!” grunts Buck. “I won’t have to hear no more of that song.”

“Shall we keep on singing?” asks Muley.

“Not to amuse me,” says Magpie. “I reckon that song is musically inclined, but I don’t like to hear four grown men hold their breath like that. Maybe you better rest a while. Maybe the orchestra would like to play.”

“Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,” says Bill Thatcher, rosining his old bow.

“Not your music,” says Half-Mile. “It makes me mad. I hate —— out of Sweet Marie, especially when she’s played by main strength. You’d seem a heap like Ole Bull to a deaf man whose eyesight was failing.”

Buck came out and Ornery Olsen went in.

Pretty soon Dirty Shirt stands up and says—

“Magpie, does them fellers have to pay Doc for his opinion?”

“Nope. They pay the five dollars and get examined free.”

“I need looking over,” opines Dirty, “so you can fill me out one of them application things.”

Magpie fixes him up and he was the last one to go inside. The rest of them just sets there and glares at each other. Magpie comes down and has a little talk with the quartet and then they gets up and starts out.

“Why for does the canaries leave?” asks Half-Mile, and Muley says:

“This here bunch of golden-voiced warblers are going to leave before the list is posted. Sabe? We came to praise Cæsar—not to bury him.”

Then Dirty came out and sat down beside me. Magpie and Scenery cocks their guns and hooks their toes around the legs of their chairs. Doc Milliken tiptoes up to Magpie and hands him the list.

Guns seem to appear from every waistband, and I seen Ole Testament spit on his hands and pick up his fork-handle. As Magpie stands up I hears several guns click.

“Gents,” says Magpie, “we’re going to give you all an even break. All of you get up and walk to the back of the room. Then you form a line, like you was going to run a race; sabe? I am going to tack this list against the wall up here, and when I give the word you can all walk—walk, not run—up to where you can read your fate. Me and Scenery are going to stand here, and the first man who hurries, shoves, trips or otherwise hampers his neighbor will spend eternity picking buckshot out of his earthly envelope. Now, line up—dang yuh, line up!”

They followed directions to the letter while Magpie nails that fatal sheet to the wall.

“Go!” says Magpie, and they went, while the orchestra played, soft and low, “What Shall the Harvest Be?”

Somebody cusses soft-like, and I hears Magpie say—

“Easy, Tombstone!” They seems to all stop together and their heads are at least three feet ahead of their boots.

I seen Half-Mile’s hand relax from his gun and it fell on the floor. Old Testament tried to pick his teeth with the fork-handle. Tombstone hitches up his belt and scratches one knee with his other foot.

“According to that, we’re candidates for the cemetery,” observed Judge Steele sickly-like.

“Who passed?” whispered Ornery, who can’t read.

“Dirty Shirt Jones!” yelped Half-Mile.

“Where is Doc Milliken?” howled Buck, but Doc had gone hence.

They just sort of mills around and looks at each other.

“Well,” says the judge, “what will we do now?”

“You might kiss and make up,” suggests Magpie. “Piperock is getting as bad as New York. You fellers won’t kill nobody unless you gets paid for it.”

“Am I a Lizard or ain’t I?” asks Dirty Shirt.

“You ain’t been initiated yet,” squeaks Scenery.

“Whatfor kind of a thing is that?”

“We’ll show yuh,” grins Magpie. “It’s lots of fun. We ain’t got all our things to do with yet, but we sabe a few simple things.”

Magpie and Scenery gets Bill Thatcher and Frenchy to help them, and the rest of us sets back to see the fun. They takes off his boots and puts a can of Cayenne pepper in each one. Then they waltzes him up and down the hall until it gets to working good. I feel sorry for poor old Dirty. He gets past with that, and then Scenery announces that he is about to be presented with the Royal Girdle of the Crippled Crawlers, and he hands Dirty a live bull snake.

Poor Dirty lets out a war-whoop and tries to get loose, but the four of them hang on to him. The poor feller is blindfolded so he can’t see nothing and he don’t know it wasn’t a rattler. Then they picks him up off the floor by the arms and legs.

“Brother Lizards,” says Magpie, “we will now cast him into outer darkness, that he may obtain meekness and learn to crawl.”

Dirty yelps and tries to get loose, but they raises the window, Magpie yells, “Tim-m-m-m-ber-r-r-r-r!” and they threw him out bodily.

“My Gawd!” gasps Tombstone. “You’ve killed the poor coot!”

Magpie turns from the window and grins at the crowd.

“That was a danged inhuman thing to do,” states Half-Mile. “It’s thirty feet to the street.”

Just then we hears somebody yell: “Whoo, hoo! Magpie!”

Magpie opens another window and leans out.

Muley Bowles yells up.

“Hurry up! We can’t wait all night.”

“My ——!” gasps Magpie. “They had the blanket at the wrong window!”

Then I cut the rope off the goat’s neck.

Mighty saw it first. He knew what he knew when he yelled—

“Look out for John L. Goat!”

Man, they looked out. That goat was all primed to do the duties he was supposed to do in a lodge, but the floor was slippery and most of them got past. John L. Goat skidded and blatted and hit Tombstone Todd as he dove for the door, and Tombstone went into the wall against the side of his head, and I saw all the ambition die out of his eyes.

The goat hit him once after he was down, and then went tiptoeing around the hall while I hid behind a chair. It hopped up on the platform, pulled down the notice, picked up a sheet of paper off the table and seemed to make itself a sandwich. Then it came down and went out of the door.

I rolled me a cigaret and pondered deep-like on lodges. Suddenly I hears a scraping noise and into the door comes Dirty Shirt on his hands and knees. He’s got an expression on his face like that of an old dog looking for a place to die. He crawls plumb over to the window and I walks beside him, patting him on the head. Once he licked my hand, I think. Still, maybe he tried to bite me—I don’t just know.

Over by the window he hauls himself up and peers outside. The bunch are lighting the lamps in Buck’s place.

I put my arm around Dirty to keep him from falling out, and he says—

“I—fell—for—a—mile—and—then—I—bounced.”

“Bounced?”

“Don’tcha—believe—me?”

Biff!

I had forgotten that goat. The universe seemed to hit me just below the point of balance. I scraped my knee-caps and felt my toes hang for a second—then space. I hung on to Dirty Shirt. It seems years after the landing before I can breathe, and then I sets up in the road beside Dirty Shirt. I says—

“Did—you—bounce?”

“No,” says he weak-like. “I didn’t have a chance, ’cause you was on top.”

It took us about an hour to get home. Dirty had one leg that wanted to go north and I had one that wanted to go south; so we covered a lot of useless territory on the way. Doc Milliken and Magpie are in the cabin, and they sure stared at us quite some when we fell inside arm in arm.

“Dirty,” says Magpie, “we’re sorry. We had men at the window to catch you, but they got at the wrong window when you fell.”

“Which—time?” asks Dirty.

“Magpie, is there an insanity clause in that policy?” asks Doc. “This feller is knocked crazy.”

“Nope. I returned the money you collected today, Ike.”

“Why did Doc pass me and turn down the rest?” wonders Dirty.

“Because you wasn’t mad at anybody,” grins Doc.

“Don’t I get nothing for my trouble?” I asks. “I’ve sure done a day’s work.”

“Yes,” says Magpie, “and it took a horse doctor to undo it, Ike.”

“Is the Legion still doing business?” asks Dirty.

“In times of peace,” says Magpie, “but in these days of paid murder she’d soon put the Bank of England in the sere and yaller leaf. We sure figure on doing big business but——”

The door flies open and Scenery sticks his head inside.

“All is lost,” he squeaks. “Th-the gug-goat ate the ch-charter!”

Which finished Magpie’s sentence and the Loyal Legion of Lizards.