ast as a hoss kin trot.
There's no devilment they won't do, and there kin be nothin' wrong in
anything you kin do and say to them."

"Everybody settles some things for himself," said the unchangeable Si.
"I believe them folks are as bad as they kin be made. I believe every
one o' 'em ought to be killed, and if it wuz orders to kill 'em I'd kill
without turnin' a hair. But I jest simply won't lie to nobody, I don't
care who he is. I'll stand by you until the last drop; you kin tell 'em
what you please, but I won't tell 'em nothin', except that they're a
pizen gang, and ought t've bin roastin' in brimstone long ago."

"But," expostulated Shorty, "if you only go along with me you're actin'
a lie. If you go out o' camp with mo you'll pretend to bo desertin' and
j'inin' in{195} with 'em. Seems to me that's jest as bad as tellin' a
lie straight out."

"Well," said the immovable Si, "I draw the line there. I'll go along
with you, and they kin think what they like. But if I say anything to
'em, they'll git it mighty straight."

"Well, I don't know but, after all, we kin better arrange it that way,"
said Shorty, after he had thought it over in silence for some time. "I'm
sure that if you'd talk you'd give us dead away. That clumsy basswood
tongue o' your'n hain't any suppleness, and you'd be sure to blurt out
something that'd jest ruin us. An idee occurs to me. You jest go along,
look sour and say nothin'. I'll tell 'em you ketched cold the other
night and lost your speech. It'll give me a turn o' extra dooty talkin'
for two, but I guess I kin do it."

"All right," agreed Si. "Let it go that way."

"Now, look here, Si," said Shorty, in a low, mysterious tone, "I'm goin'
to tell you somethin' that I hadn't intended to. I'm scared to death
lest that old hag'll git the drop on me some way and marry me right out
of hand. I tell you, she jest frightens the life out o' me. That worries
me more'n all the rest put together. I expect I ought t 'v' told you so
at the very first."

"Nonsense," said Si contemptuously. "The idee o' you're being afeared o'
such a thing."

"It's all very well for you to snort and laugh, Si Klegg," persisted
Shorty. "You don't know her. I sneered at her, too, at first, but when
I was left alone with her she seemed to mesmerize me. I found myself
talkin' about marryin' her before I knowed{196} it, and the next thing
I was on the p'int o' actually marryin' her. I believe that if she'd got
me to walk a h