“‘I ain’t payin’ much attention at the time,’—­Silver Phil’s talkin’ to that marshal gent,—­’bein’ I’m thinkin’ of something else, but do I onderstand that old grey sport on the bench to say you-all is to hang me next month?’

“‘That’s whatever!’ assents this marshal gent, ‘an’ you can gamble a bloo stack that hangin’ you is a bet we ain’t none likely to overlook.  Which we’re out to put our whole grateful souls into the dooty.’

“‘Now I thinks of it,’ observes Silver Phil, ‘I’m some averse to bein’ hanged.  I reckons, speakin’ free an’ free as between fellow sports, that in order for that execootion to be a blindin’ success I’ll have to be thar personal?’

“‘It’s one of the mighty few o’casions,’ responds the marshal, ’when your absence would shorely dash an’ damp the gen’ral joy.  As you says, you’ll have to be thar a heap personal when said hangin’ occurs.’

“‘I’m mighty sorry,’ says Silver Phil, ’that you-all lays out your game in a fashion that so much depends on me.  The more so, since the longer I considers this racket, the less likely it is I’ll be thar.  It’s almost a cinch, with the plans I has, that I’ll shore be some’ers else.’

“They corrals Silver Phil in the one big upper room of a two-story ‘doby, an’ counts off a couple of dep’ty marshals to gyard him.  These gyards, comin’ squar’ down to cases, ain’t no improvement, moral, on Silver Phil himse’f; an’ since they’re twice his age—­Silver Phil not bein’ more’n twenty—­it’s safe as a play to say that both of ’em oughter have been hanged a heap before ever Silver Phil is born.  These two hold-ups, however, turns dep’ty marshals in their old age, an’ is put in to stand watch an’ watch an’ see that Silver Phil don’t work loose from his hobbles an’ go pirootin’ off ag’in into parts onknown.  Silver Phil is loaded with fetters,—­handcuffs an’ laig-locks both—­an’ these hold-up sentries is armed to the limit.

“It’s the idee of Doc Peets later, when he hears the details, that if the gyards that time treats Silver Phil with kindness, the little felon most likely would have remained to be hanged.  But they don’t:  they abooses Silver Phil; cussin’ him out an’ herdin’ him about like he’s cattle.  They’re a evil-tempered couple, them dep’ties, an’ they don’t give Silver Phil no sort o’ peace.

“‘As I su’gests yeretofore,’ says Doc Peets, when he considers the case, ’this Silver Phil is a degen’rate.  He’s like a anamile.  He don’t entertain no reg’lar scheme to work free when he waxes sardonic with the marshal; that’s only a bluff.  Later, when them gyards takes to maltreatin’ him an’ battin’ him about, it wakes up the venom in him, an’ his cunnin’ gets aroused along with his appetite for revenge.’

“This Silver Phil, who’s lean an’ slim like I explains at the jump, has hands no bigger than a cat’s paws.  It ain’t no time when he discovers that by cuttin’ himse’f a bit on the irons, he can shuck the handcuffs whenever he’s disposed.  Even then, he don’t outline no campaign for liberty; jest sort o’ roominates an’ waits.