“One creased me there,” he confessed—­“a depity marshal—­that time they had a reward out for me, dead or alive.”

I was for details.

“What did you do?”

Jimmie Time stayed laconic.

“Left him there—­that’s all!”

It was arid, yet somehow informing.  It conveyed to me that a marshal had been cleverly put to needing a new deputy.

“Burying ground?” I guessed.

“That’s all!” He laughed venomously—­a short, dry, restrained laugh.  “They give me a nickname,” said he.  “They called me Little Sure Shot.  No wonder they did!  Ho!  I should think they would of called me something like that.”  He lifted his voice.  “Hey!  Boogles!”

I had been conscious of a stooping figure in the adjacent vegetable garden.  It now became erect, a figure of no distinction—­short, rounded, decked in carelessly worn garments of no elegance.  It slouched inquiringly toward us between rows of sprouted corn.  Then I saw that the head surmounting it was a noble head.  It was uncovered, burnished to a half circle of grayish fringe; but it was shaped in the grand manner and well borne, and the full face of it was beautified by features of a very Roman perfection.  It was the face of a judge of the Supreme Court or the face of an ideal senator.  His large grave eyes bathed us in a friendly regard; his full lips of an orator parted with leisurely and promising unction.  I awaited courtly phrases, richly rounded periods.

“A regular hell-cat—­what he is!”

Thus vocalized the able lips.  Jimmie Time glowed modestly.

“Show him how I can shoot,” said he.

The amazing Boogies waddled—­yet with dignity—­to a point ten paces distant, drew a coin from the pocket of his dingy overalls, and spun it to the blue of heaven.  Ere it fell the deadly weapon bore swiftly on it and snapped.

“Crack!” said the marksman grimly.

His assistant recovered the coin, scrutinized it closely, rubbed a fat thumb over its supposedly dented surface, and again spun it.  The desperado had turned his back.  He drew as he wheeled, and again I was given to understand that his aim had been faultless.

“Good Little Sure Shot!” declaimed Boogies fulsomely.

“Hold it in your hand oncet,” directed Little Sure Shot.  The intrepid assistant gallantly extended the half dollar at arm’s length between thumb and finger and averted his statesman’s face with practiced apprehension.  “Crack!” said Little Sure Shot, and the coin seemed to be struck from the unscathed hand.  “Only nicked the aidge of it,” said he, genially deprecating.  “I don’t like to take no chancet with the lad’s mitt.”

It had indeed been a pretty display of sharpshooting—­and noiseless.

“Had me nervous, you bet, first time he tried that,” called Boogles.  “Didn’t know his work then.  Thought sure he’d wing me.”

Jimmie Time loftily ejected imaginary shells from his trusty firearm and seemed to expel smoke from its delicate interior.  Boogies waddled his approach.