out of
sight, and then hikes for the railroad, with a two-hundred dollar cash
present for the minister in his pocket, and probably another
seventy-five or a hundred in odds and ends.

And after him went Hy Smith, also. He flagged a train about a mile out
of town and hopped aboard. I come out of the bush and took the last
car, telling the brakie a much-needed man had got on forward. Also, I
took the Con. into my confidence. So just when we pulled into the next
town I steps behind Mr. Troy, puts a gun against the back of his neck,
and read the paper Ag had prepared for me.

"Now, Mr. Troy, alias Paris, alias Goat, etc., come with me, or go
forward in the icebox. Don't make a fuss or we'll alarm the
ladies--I've read you the warrant!"

He walked ahead as meek as Moses. By a cross-cut across the hills it
weren't more than four mile to Cactus, and Troy stepped it like a
four-year-old.

We come in behind the church. "That you, Hy?" says Ag. "Bring our
friend, Mr. Troy, through the rear. If you don't know the way, he'll
sell you a map for ten dollars."

"Whenever you want to die, just holler," says I to Troy. It was a
quiet journey. When we got inside, there was Ag and the cow-punch,
smiling kindly. Ag was mixing paint in a pot.

"They used few colours in this edifice," says Ag, "otherwise I could
have produced something surprising. Blue for the hair," says he, "a
sign of purity." So he painted Troy's hair blue. And he painted a red
stripe down the nose and small queer rings all over his face, and with
a pair of lamp scissors he roached Troy's name like a mule--and, well,
he did make something uncommon out of Troy.

"Lovely _thing_!" says Ag, coquettish, and pokes him with his finger.

Troy, he didn't say nothing. In fact, when you come to think of it,
there wasn't many sparkling thoughts for him to put out.

"I got a few other traps we need," says Ag, pulling out a long coiled
wire spring (off a printing press, I reckon). "Come on," he says, "and
we'll fix something to entertain all the children." We put a belt on
Troy, run a line through it and hitched on the spring. The cow-punch,
he crawled up to the peak of the roof with a pulley, made it fast and
passed Mr. Troy's line through it. Then Ag took a brace and bit,
boring a one-inch hole in the floor, and give instructions to a pair of
Injuns in the cellar.

Then we yee-heed brother Troy to the top of the tree, running the
rope's end down the