pancakes' Uncle Emsley sort of dodged and stepped back.

"'Somebody's been dealing me pancakes from the bottom of the deck,' I
says, 'and I'll find out. I believe you know. Talk up,' says I, 'or
we'll mix a panful of batter right here.'

"I slid over the counter after Uncle Emsley. He grabbed at his gun,
but it was in a drawer, and he missed it two inches. I got him by the
front of his shirt and shoved him in a corner.

"'Talk pancakes,' says I, 'or be made into one. Does Miss Willella
make 'em?'

"'She never made one in her life and I never saw one,' says Uncle
Emsley, soothing. 'Calm down now, Jud--calm down. You've got excited,
and that wound in your head is contaminating your sense of
intelligence. Try not to think about pancakes.'

"'Uncle Emsley,' says I, 'I'm not wounded in the head except so far as
my natural cognitive instincts run to runts. Jackson Bird told me he
was calling on Miss Willella for the purpose of finding out her system
of producing pancakes, and he asked me to help him get the bill of
lading of the ingredients. I done so, with the results as you see.
Have I been sodded down with Johnson grass by a pink-eyed snoozer, or
what?'

"'Slack up your grip in my dress shirt,' says Uncle Emsley, 'and I'll
tell you. Yes, it looks like Jackson Bird has gone and humbugged you
some. The day after he went riding with Willella he came back and told
me and her to watch out for you whenever you got to talking about
pancakes. He said you was in camp once where they was cooking
flapjacks, and one of the fellows cut you over the head with a frying
pan. Jackson said that whenever you got overhot or excited that wound
hurt you and made you kind of crazy, and you went raving about
pancakes. He told us to just get you worked off of the subject and
soothed down, and you wouldn't be dangerous. So, me and Willella done
the best by you we knew how. Well, well,' says Uncle Emsley, 'that
Jackson Bird is sure a seldom kind of a snoozer.'"

During the progress of Jud's story he had been slowly but deftly
combining certain portions of the contents of his sacks and cans.
Toward the close of it he set before me the finished product--a pair
of red-hot, rich-hued pancakes on a tin plate. From some secret
hoarding he also brought a lump of excellent butter and a bottle of
golden syrup.

"How long ago did these things happen?" I asked him.

"Three years," said Jud. "They're living on the Mired Mule Ranch now.
But I haven't