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“Well, I’ll tell you,” continued Bunt, between mouthfuls of pie, “I’ll tell you. This yere prejudice agin profanity is the only thing about this yere Peg-leg that ain’t pizen bad, an’ that prejudice, you got to know, was just along o’ his being loco on that one subjeck. ‘Twa’n’t as if he had any real principles or convictions about the thing. It was just a loco prejudice. Just as some gesabes has feelin’s agin cats an’ snakes, or agin seein’ a speckled nigger. It was just on-reasonable. So what I’m aimin’ to have you understand is the fact that it was extremely appropriate that Peg-leg should die, that it was a blame good thing, and somethin’ to be celebrated by free drinks all round.

“You can say he treated me white, an’ took my unsupported word. Well, so he did; but that was in spite o’ what he really was hisself, ‘way on the inside o’ him. Inside o’ him he was black-bad, an’ it wa’n’t a week after we had made our bargint that he did for a little Mojave kid in a way I don’t like to think of.

“So when he took an’ died like as how I’m a-going to tell you of, I was plumb joyful, not only because I could feel at liberty to relieve my mind when necessary in a manner as is approved of and rightful among gents–not only because o’ that, but because they was one less bad egg in the cow-country.

“Now the manner o’ Peg-leg’s dying was sure hilarious-like. I didn’t git over laughin’ about it for a month o’ Sundays–an’ I ain’t done yet. It was sure a joke on Peg-leg. The cutest joke that ever was played off on him.

“It was in Sonora–Sonora, Arizona, I mean. They’d a-been a kind o’ gold excitement there, and all the boys had rounded up. The town was full–chock-a-block. Peg-leg he was there too, drunk all the time an’ bullyin’ everybody, an’ slambangin’ around in his same old way. That very day he’d used a friend o’ his–his best friend–cruel hard: just mean and nasty, you know.

“Well, I’m sitting into a little game o’ faro about twelve o’clock at night, me an’ about a dozen o’ the boys. We’re good an’ interested, and pretty much to the good o’ the game, an’ somebody’s passin’ drinks when all at once there’s a sure big rumpus out in the street, an’ a gent sticks his head thro’ the door an’ yells out:

“‘Hi, there, they’s a fire! The Golden West Hotel is on fire!’

“We draws the game as soon as convenient and hikes out, an’, my word, you’d ‘a’ thought from the looks o’ things as how the whole town was going. But it was only the hotel–the Golden West, where Peg-leg was stayin’; an’ when we got up we could hear the ol’ murderer bellerin’ an’ ragin’, an’ him drunk–of course.

“Well, I’m some excited. Lord love you, I’d as soon ‘a’ seen Peg-leg shot as I would eat, an’ when I remembers the little Mojave kid I’m glad as how his time is at hand. Saved us the trouble o’ lynchin’ that sooner or later had to come.

“Peg-leg’s room was in the front o’ the house on the fourth floor, but the fire was all below, and what with the smoke comin’ out the third-story winders he couldn’t see down into the street, no more’n the boys could see him–only they just heard him bellerin’.

“Then some one of ’em sings out:

“‘Hey, Peg-leg, jump! We got a blanket here.’

“An’ sure enough he does jump!”

Here Bunt chuckled grimly, muttering, “Yes, sir, sure enough he did jump.”

“I don’t quite see,” I observed, “where the laugh comes in. What was the joke of it?”

“The joke of it was,” finished Bunt, “that they hadn’t any blanket.”