“Now look here.  Dan Anderson may be lookin’ right well for a dyin’ man, but he’s on his death-bed just the same.  That’s needful for the purposes of dramatic construction.  He’s a-layin’ there, pale and wore out.  His right arm is busted permernent, and it’s only a question of time when he cashes in—­though he might live a few days if he was plumb shore his own true love was a-hastenin’ to his bedside.”

“But it was his left arm that got shot,” argued Curly; “and it didn’t amount to a whole lot at that.”

“There’s you go,” jeered Tom, in answer, “with them imitation brain works of yours.  It’s his right arm that’s busted.  Now, him a-layin’ there plumb helpless, his thoughts turns to his bride that might ‘a’ been, but wasn’t.  With his last dyin’ words he greets her.  If she would only hasten to his deathbed, he could die in peace.  That’s what he writes to her.  ‘Dear Madam,’ says he, ‘Havin’ loved you all my life, I fain would gaze on you onct more.  In that case,’ says he, ‘the clouds certainly would roll away!’”

“That shorely would fetch her,” said Curly, admiringly, “but how you goin’ to fix it?”

“Why, how?  There ain’t but one way.  The dyin’ man has his dear friend Curly, or Tom Osby, or some one, write his last words for him.  That ain’t counterfeitin’.  That’s only actin’ as his literary amanyensis, and that’s plumb legal.”

“Things may be legal, and not safe,” objected Curly.  “Supposin’ he finds out?”

“Why, then, we’ll be far, far away.  This letter has got to be wrote.  I can’t write it myself, and you can’t; but maybe several of us could.”

“I ain’t in on writin’ the letter,” Curly decided; “I’ll carry it, but my writin’ is too sot, and so’s my thinker.”

“Well, I ain’t used my own thinker in this particular way for about twenty years,” said Tom Osby, “although I did co’te two of my wives by perlite correspondence, something like this; and I couldn’t see but what them wives lasted as good as any.”

“It’s too bad Dan Anderson ain’t in on this play hisself,” Curly resumed.  “Now if it was us that was layin’ dead, and him writin’ the letter, he’d have us both alive, and have the girl here by two o’clock to-morrer, and everything ’d be lovely.  But us!  We don’t know any more about this than a pair of candy frogs.”

“The fewer there is in on a woman deal the better,” said Tom Osby, “and yet it looks like we needed help right now!”

The two sat gazing gloomily down the long street of Heart’s Desire, and so intent were they that they did not see the shambling figure of Willie the sheepherder coming up the street.  Then Tom Osby’s gaze focussed him.

“Now there’s that damned sheepherder that broke us up in business,” said he.  “It was him that got us into this fix.  If he hadn’t lied like a infernal pirate, and got Dan Anderson to thinkin’ that the girl and this lawyer feller Barkley was engaged to each other on the side, why Dan wouldn’t have flared up and busted the railroad deal, and let the girl get away, and gone and got hisself shot.”