I took a look at him, and saw, sure enough, while he had hat, coat,
and boots on, the pants was missing. Well, if it had been the last
act, I'd have had to laugh.

"Couldn't find 'em nohow," says he; "hunted high and low, jick,
Jack, and the game--Just comes to my mind now that I had 'em rolled
up and was sleeping on 'em. I don't like to go around this way'--I
feel as if I was two men, and one of 'em hardly respectable."

"Did you bring a gun with you?"

He gave me another stare. "Why, pardner, you must think I have got
a light and frivolous disposition," says he, and with that he
heaves up the great-grand-uncle of all the six-shooters I ever did
see. It made my forty-five-long look like something for a kid to
cut its teeth on. "That's the best gun in this country," he went
on.

"Looks as if it might be," says I. "Has the foundry that cast it
gone out of business? I'd like to have one like it, if it's as
dangerous as it looks."

"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go
pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving
him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something
that'll touch his conscience."

He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an
elephant over a township.