Part 3

I’m knocked kinda silly, but I heard a woman scream, as she ran past me and onto that train. The depot agent’s boots are stickin’ up from behind a trunk, where the runaway knocked him. I sets there and watches the train go out of sight. Beside me is a lady’s handbag, jist a little one with a white handkerchief stickin’ out of it. I put the thing in my pocket and got to my feet. I say “my feet” merely because they was hooked onto me. I didn’t have no feelin’ in ’em.

Then I wandered back down the street, stoppin’ now and then to get my toes pointed right, and finally got to the No-Limit Saloon. For a while I ain’t recognized, even if I have got most of the enamel knocked off my face. There’s Judgment Jones, talkin’ with Dog-Rib, and they come over to look me over.

“It’s all right, Hozie,” says Judgment. “Oasis and Alkali are satisfied we done our best. Dog-Rib says they expected more action, but I been tellin’ him it was jist a little rural play. Next time we’ll do better--I hope. But, take it all in all, we got our money’s worth--but no money.

“No money,” says he sadly. “Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T., took it all and pulled out durin’ the play--we think. Anyway, she ain’t here, and the money was given to her in the hotel. The hotel keeper said she was in a big hurry, and she put the money in her handbag. Now, we’re goin’ to raffle the racehorse--if he’s still alive.”

* * * * *

I found Peewee settin’ on the sidewalk, and we went home. He’s so bent out of shape that his saddle don’t fit him, but we got back to the HP ranch and found the horse liniment. After the first or second deluge, I said to him, “Peewee, that Wimple woman got away with the money.”

“Did she? Good for her.”

“You don’t believe in stealin’, do yuh, Peewee?”

“Not stealin’--takin’.”

“If somebody happened to find her handbag and kept the money, would that be stealin’?”

“Finder’s keepers.”

I tosses the handbag on the table, and Peewee goggles at it. He don’t ask no questions. That’s what I like about Peewee. After while he blinks one of his purple eyes, the other one bein’ shut tight, and says, “Thinkin’ it over, Hozie. I’m wonderin’.”

He opens the bag and there’s a envelope, folded in the middle; and we can feel the money inside--paper money. On it is written: _Funds of The Curse of Drink_. It’s Judgment Jones’s writin’. Peewee shakes his head.

“We can’t do it, Hozie. Old Judgment is the most honest man on earth. He needs that money for the heathen. I could never look him in the face again. He wouldn’t do wrong to anybody, and he needs that money. He trusted that woman, jist like he trusts everybody. Why, he’d even trust me and you.”

“That’s right,” says I. “We’ll give it back.”

But I wanted to see how much money they took in for that show; so I steamed the envelope open and dumped it out. I looked at Peewee and he looked at me. Money? Nothin’ but a lot of old newspaper, cut to the size of bills. We sets there and does a lot of thinkin’, and after while Peewee dumps the whole works into the stove.

And as far as we know, the heathen are in jist the same shape they were before we put on this show. Peewee wanted to be a contortionist, and for once in his life he got tied in a knot. Peewee’s satisfied. Hank’s satisfied, but Susie ain’t; she wanted to go all the way to heaven. I’m satisfied--that a cowpuncher ought to keep off every kind of a stage, except one with four wheels.

Susie says it’s too bad we were obliged to miss the moral of her play, but I said I didn’t.

“What was the moral?” she asks.

“Don’t kill yore jockey before the race starts,” says I.

And I’m right, too.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 10, 1929 issue of Short Stories magazine.]