'cause he ain't kep' in trim." He jauntily twirled one of the heavy
revolvers on a forefinger. "Not me, though, pard! Keep m'self up and
comin', you bet! Ketch me not ready to fan the old forty-four! I guess
not! Some has thought they could. Oh, yes; plenty has thought they
could. Crack! Like that!" He wheeled, this time fatally intercepting the
foe as he treacherously crept round a corner of the bunk house. "Buryin'
ground for you, mister! That's all--bury-in' ground!"

The desperado replaced one of the weapons and patted the other with
grisly affection. In the excess of my admiration I made bold to reach
for it. He relinquished it to me with a mother's yearning. And all too
legible in the polished butt of the thing were notches! Nine sinister
notches I counted--not fresh notches, but emphatic, eloquent, chilling.
I thrust the bloody record back on its gladdened owner.

"Never think it to look at me?" said he as our eyes hung above that grim
bit of bookkeeping.

"Never!" I warmly admitted.

"Me--I always been one of them quiet, mild-mannered ones that you
wouldn't think butter would melt in their mouth--jest up to a certain
point. Lots of 'em fooled that way about me--jest up to a certain point,
mind you--then, crack! Buryin' ground--that's all! Never go huntin'
trouble--understand? But when it's put on me--say!"

He lovingly replaced the weapon--with its mortuary statistics--doffed
the broad-brimmed hat with its snake-skin garniture, and placed a
forefinger athwart an area of his shining scalp which is said by a
certain pseudoscience to shield several of man's more spiritual