"Never!" I warmly admitted.
"Me--I always been one of them quiet, mild-mannered ones that you
wouldn't think butter would melt in their mouth--jest up to a certain
point. Lots of 'em fooled that way about me--jest up to a certain point,
mind you--then, crack! Buryin' ground--that's all! Never go huntin'
trouble--understand? But when it's put on me--say!"
He lovingly replaced the weapon--with its mortuary statistics--doffed
the broad-brimmed hat with its snake-skin garniture, and placed a
forefinger athwart an area of his shining scalp which is said by a
certain pseudoscience to shield several of man's more spiritual
attributes. The finger traced an ancient but still evil looking scar.
"One creased me there," he confessed--"a depity marshal--that time they
had a reward out for me, dead or alive."
I was for details.
"What did you do?"
Jimmie Time stayed laconic.
"Left him there--that's all!"
It was arid, yet somehow informing. It conveyed to me that a marshal had
been cleverly put to needing a new deputy.
"Burying ground?" I guessed.
"That's all!" He laughed venomously--a short, dry, restrained laugh.
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