“S’posin’ I shoot Willie up just for luck,” suggested Curly.  “He’s got it comin’ to him, from the way that Gee-Whiz friend of his throwed lead into our fellers, time we was arguin’ with them over them sheep.  This country ain’t got no use for sheep, nor sheepherders either, specially the kind that makes trouble with railroads, and girls.”

“No, hold on a minute,” interrupted Tom Osby.  “You wait—­I’ve got a idea.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Wait a minute.  How saith the psalmist?  All men is liars; and sheepherders special, natural, eighteen-karat, hand-curled liars—­which is just the sort we need right now in our business.”

Curly slapped his thigh in sudden understanding.  The two sat, still watching Willie as he came rambling aimlessly up the street, staring from side to side in his vacant fashion.

“A sheepherder, as you know, Curly,” went on Tom, “has three stages in his game.  For a while he’s human.  In a few years, settin’ round on the hills in the sun, a-watchin’ them damned woolly baa-baa’s of his, he gets right nutty.  He sees things.  Him a-gettin’ so lonesome, and a-readin’ high-class New York literature all the time, he gets to thinkin’ of the Lady Eyemogene.  You might think he’s seein’ cactus and sheep, but what is really floatin’ before him is proud knights, and haughty barons, and royal monarchs, and Lady Eyemogenes.

“It ain’t sinful for Willie to lie, like it is for us, because life is one continuous lie to him.  He’s seen a swimmin’ picture of hand-painted palaces, and noble jukes, and stately dames out on the Nogal flats every day for eight years.  That ain’t lyin’—­that’s imagination.

“Now this feller’s imagination is just about ripe.  Usual, at the end of about seven years, a sheepherder goes plumb dotty, and we either have to shoot him, or send him to Leavenworth.  Your Gee-Whiz man can maybe take to cow punchin’ and prosper, but not Willie.  His long suit is imaginin’ things, from now on.

“Now, that feller is naturally pinin’ to write this here particular letter we’ve got on our minds.  You watch Willie compose.”

“Here you, Willie, come over here!” Curly called out.

The herder started in fright.  Timid at best, he was all the more so since the raid of the Carrizoso stock men.  His legs trembled under him, but he slowly approached in obedience.

“Willie,” said Tom Osby, sternly, “I’m some hardened as a sinner my own self, but the kind of way you do pains me.  What made you tell that lie about seein’ the lady and that lawyer feller makin’ love to each other, on the back seat of the buckboard, behind the old man’s back?”

“I thought I seen ’em,” pleaded Willie.  “I—­I thought I heard ’em talkin’.”

“Oh, sufferin’ saints!  Listen to that!  You thought!  Of course you did.  You and that Gee-Whiz friend of yours ought to turn yourselves into a symposium and write for the papers.  Now look here.  Have you got a copy of the ‘Proud Earl’s Revenge,’ in your pocket?”