Chapter 2

The house shakes with the concussion and Buck drops uh glass he’s been polishing for ten minutes. He looks under the bar, and gasps—

“My riot-gun!”

We sets there and looks at each other for uh minute, and then the judge runs his fingers painful like through his hair, and orates in uh peevish, wailing tone—

“Well, dang it all, send for uh doctor or uh coroner.”

Somebody starts to get both when the door flies open and in walks Chuck. He ambles the length of the room and slams the shotgun down on the bar.

“——!” he snorts, “I shot its crop all to ——!”

“Is—is it dead?” quavers the judge.

“I don’t know, Judge,” replies Chuck, weary like. “It was when I left.”

“What’d yuh shoot it for?” asks Scenery.

“It ate up all that raffle money—dang its hide! Now, I shot the treasury all to flinders.”

“Raffle money!” snorts Tellurium. “Did anybody pay yuh cash, Chuck? I know danged well I didn’t. I just signed your paper for it.”

Chuck looks blank like for uh minute, feels of his head, and snorts:

“Cripes! I sure must uh been kicked hard. Where’s Ricky?”

“Right here,” chirps Ricky. “What yuh want?”

“Where’s that piece uh paper I gave yuh just before the raffle started?”

“Piece uh—oh, that piece. Gosh! Was that worth anything, Chuck? I remember you handing it to me, and telling me to put it in my pocket, but I thought yuh was joshing. Well, I was standing over there by that shotgun, after Buck puts it back on the bar, and unless I’m mistaken I sort uh absent-minded like shoved it into the muzzle uh that gun. I’m sorry——”

“You’re welcome,” states Chuck, offhand like. “It looks to me like I’d shot the business all to —— with the profits. I lose eleven dollars and four cents on the deal.”

“What I want to know is this: is that bird critter still in the land of the living?” interrupts Scenery Sims.

“What I want to know is—has somebody got some liniment?” states the judge, and then me and Magpie and Chuck goes outside.

“Ain’t it awful?” complains Chuck. “The goose that was going to lay the golden aig is dead, and your two hundred is all shot to pieces.”

“Just because uh sixteen upside down is ninety-one,” agrees Magpie. “How do yuh figure you’re out eleven dollars and four cents?”

“I gave uh five spot to Art for holding his tongue, and Buck took uh five for the busted looking-glass. Sabe? That’s ten. The dollar I had to pay uh feller in Great Falls for writing that scientific letter, one dollar, and it cost me postage both ways. She totals up to eleven dollars and four cents, Magpie.”

“Say, Chuck, where did yuh invent the name ‘Railami’ for that bird?”

“Spell it backward, Ike,” says he.

“You are,” states Magpie.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 3, 1918 issue ofAdventuremagazine.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 3, 1918 issue ofAdventuremagazine.

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