THE SCOURGE




PARDNERS

"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones
forbidding dispute. "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages
germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot. He meant
pardnerships. The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n
you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry. No, sir!
A true pardnership is the sanctifiedest relation that grows, is, and
has its beans, while any two folks of opposite sect can marry and peg
the game out some way. Of course, all pardnerships ain't divine. To
every one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in ----.
There goes them cussed dogs again!"

He dove abruptly at the tent flap, disappearing like a palmed coin,
while our canvas structure reeled drunkenly at his impact. The
sounds of strife without rose shrilly into blended agony, and the
yelps of Keno melted away down the gulch in a rapid and rabid
diminuendo.

Inasmuch as I had just packed out from camp in a loose pair of rubber
boots, and was nursing two gall blisters, I did not feel called upon
to emulate this energy of arbitration, particularly in bare feet.

"That black malamoot is a walking delegate for strife," he remarked,
returning. "Sometime I'll lose my temper--and that's the kind of