m dogwood trees
put forth an Amsden's June peach I might come back and get my things.
Then they took off the trace chains and jerked their thumbs in the
direction of the Rocky Mountains; and I struck a Lewis and Clark lope
for the swollen rivers and impenetrable forests.

"When I regained intellectualness I found myself walking into an
unidentified town on the A., T. & S. F. railroad. The Peaviners hadn't
left anything in my pockets except a plug of chewing--they wasn't
after my life--and that saved it. I bit off a chunk and sits down on a
pile of ties by the track to recogitate my sensations of thought and
perspicacity.

"And then along comes a fast freight which slows up a little at the
town; and off of it drops a black bundle that rolls for twenty yards
in a cloud of dust and then gets up and begins to spit soft coal and
interjections. I see it is a young man broad across the face, dressed
more for Pullmans than freights, and with a cheerful kind of smile in
spite of it all that made Phoebe Snow's job look like a chimney-sweep's.

"'Fall off?' says I.

"'Nunk,' says he. 'Got off. Arrived at my destination. What town is
this?'

"'Haven't looked it up on the map yet,' says I. 'I got in about five
minutes before you did. How does it strike you?'

"'Hard,' says he, twisting one of his arms around. 'I believe that
shoulder--no, it's all right.'

"He stoops over to brush the dust off his clothes, when out of his
pocket drops a fine, nine-inch burglar's steel jimmy. He picks it up
and looks at me sharp, and then grins and holds out his hand.

"'Brother,' says he, 'greetings. Didn't I see you in Southern Missouri
last summer selling colored sand at half-a-dollar a teaspoonful to put
into lamps to keep the oil from exploding?'

"'Oil,' says I, 'never explodes. It's the gas that forms that
explodes.' But I shakes hands with him, anyway.

"'My name's Bill Bassett,' says he to me, 'and if you'll call it
professional pride instead of conceit, I'll inform you that you have
the pleasure of meeting the best burglar that ever set a gum-shoe on
ground drained by the Mississippi River.'

"Well, me and this Bill Bassett sits on the ties and exchanges brags
as artists in kindred lines will do. It seems he didn't have a cent,
either, and we went into close caucus. He explained why an able
burglar sometimes had to travel on freights by telling me that a
servant girl had played him false in Little Rock, and he was making
a qu