ers
that are driving that adit tunnel, but when he gets the time he'll leave
his glass eye on a fence post and come over to see what we're doing.
Didn't you ever hear about Murray's glass eye?

"Well, they say he lost his good one looking for a dollar that he
dropped; but here's the big joke about the fence-post. He got his start
down in the valley, raising alfalfa and feeding stock, and he always
hired Indians whenever he could because they spent all their time-checks
at the store. A Mexican or a white man might hold out a few dollars, or
spend the whole wad for booze; but Indians are barred from getting drunk
and they've only got one use for money. Yes, they believe it was made to
spend, not to bury alongside of some fence-post. And speaking of
fence-posts brings me back to the point--Old Murray had a bunch of big,
lazy Apaches working by the day cleaning out a ditch. He was down there
at daylight and watched 'em like a hawk, but every time he'd go into
town the whole bunch would sit down for a talk. Well, he _had_ to
go to town so one day he called 'em up and made 'em a little talk.

"'Boys,' he says, 'I've got to go to town but I'm going to watch you,
all the same. Sure thing, now,' he says, 'you can laugh all you want to,
but I'll see everything that you do.' Then he took out his glass eye and
set it on a fence-post where it looked right down the ditch, and started
off for town. You know these Apaches--superstitious as hell--they got in
and worked like niggers. Kinder scared 'em, you see, ain't used to glass
eyes; but there was one old boy that was foxy. He dropped down in the
ditch where the eye wouldn't see him and crept up behind that fence-post
like a snake, and then he picked up an empty tin can and slapped it down
over the eye. There was a boy over at the ranch that saw the whole
business and he says them Indians never did a lick of work till they saw
Bible-Back's dust down the road. Pretty slick, eh, for an Indian? And
some people will try to tell you that the untutored savage can't think.

"Well, that's the kind of an hombre that we're up against--he'd skin a
flea for his hide and taller. As old Spud Murphy used to say, he'd rob a
poor tumble-bug of his ball of manure and put him on the wrong road
home. He's mean, and it sure hurt his feelings to have you hop in and
win back your mine. And knocking Dave on the head took the pip out of
these other jumpers--I'm looking for the whole bunch to fade."

"Well,