“‘No man could be a better pardner than you be, Zeke,’ says he.  ’I ain’t a mite afraid of nothin’ when that bald head of your’n is in sight, an’ you understand a feller—­it’s a tough play for a rooster that don’t come by sand natural.’

“‘You got plenty of sand, Pete,’ says I, ’all the trouble is, you let it git choked in your hoppers.  By-by.’  And away I went, slopin’ fast, with Pete’s forty-eight dollars down in my jeans.

“I was so took up with his affairs I didn’t watch out careful, and that ain’t wise in a hard-luck country.  All of a suddent I hears a v’ice say, ‘Puttee hands light uppee!’ Sounds like I’d struck a day nursery, but that ain’t so, for just before I hears them words there popped out from behind a rock a Chinaman—­not, by no means, one of these here little Charlie-boys that does your wash and gives you a ticket with picters of strange insecks painted on it, but a whoopin’, smashin’ old Tartar pirate, seven foot by three, with mustaches like two tails of a small hoss, and cheekbones you could hang your hat on.  More’n that, he was armed and equipped with two hoss-pistols as required by circumstances.

“That tired feelin’ come over me, and I stretched; yessir, the hands of E. G. W. Scraggs went up toward the sky.

“My yaller friend next requested me to produce.  Well, now, that was Pete’s money.  I’d ‘a’ took a chance at v’ilent physicule exercises, but I see the time had come to talk.

“‘My Christian friend and brother,’ says I, ’before we converse upon the root of all evil, let me put you on to the fact that my name is E. G. W. Scraggs.’

“‘Ah!’ says he, backin’ up, ‘Sclaggsee!’

“‘Sclaggsee!’ I hollers, and we near met on the spot.  ’Don’t you say that agin!’

“‘Ah!’ says he.

“I noticed his guns was wobblin’.

“‘Ah!’ says I.  ’You’re darned right.  Now, I’ll make you this proposition.  I got forty-eight dollars in my pocket that don’t belong to me.  If we let things slide by as if they had not happened I’ll give you two dollars for the use of that money until Tuesday next—­pay you fifty dollars next Tuesday, at Jimmy Holt’s place—­get me?’

“‘Gettee money now,’ says he, cunnin’.

“‘P’raps,’ says I, ’but you won’t be in condition to spend it for some time.’  He rolled his eye off’n me, and at that instant Mary Ann, the faithfullest gun that ever stood between me and a gentleman whose intentions weren’t good, appeared upon the scene.

“‘Don’tee shootee, Sclaggsee!’ he screeches.

“‘You call me “Sclaggsee” oncet more, and I won’t leave nothin’ of you but a rim,’ says I.  ’As for the other proposition, it goes—­Tuesday next.  Jimmy Holt’s place, I put you in hand fifty dollars, you cock-eyed, yaller, mispronouncin’ blasphemy on a heathen idol!  Although I ain’t been near enough to a cherry tree to cut one down, the word of Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs is as good as the Father of his Country,’ says I.  ’He beat me at that last game, but I can stick to my sayin’ like a porous plaster.  You get the money; I will lie for the fun of the thing, but not for no dirty fifty dollars,’ says I.  ‘You goin’ toward town?’