“It is not necessary at all,” says Ajax. “I know it ain’t,” agrees Magpie, “but I’d sure like to know what in —— it is.” Ajax drank water. Later on me and Magpie got his dictionary and looked up everything that human beings drink, and we found that that danged word-strangler wanted tea. He don’t sabe Blackfeet, Flathead or Chinook, and won’t talk United States. We can’t understand his wau-wau; so we can see that eventually some of us are going to be badly misunderstood. If it hadn’t been for Professor Middleton we’d have lured Ajax to a tall place in the trail and shoved him off. He wasn’t even funny. If you poked a gun under his nose he wouldn’t have horse sense enough to hold up his hands. No, I’ll be danged if he would! He’d likely smell into the muzzle, look it over careful-like and then classify it in a language that nobody in Yaller Rock County could interpret. After breakfast he says— “I will rest today if you don’t mind.” “Rest in peace,” says Magpie. “Take root if you must, but for the love of Moses try and bend your back and be sociable. You don’t smoke, and if you did swear in your own little way nobody’d understand you. Do you drink?” “Spiritus frumenti?” “Go to ——! Next time I says good morning to you, Ajax, it will be in sign language. I’m through talking to you, that’s a cinch.” “I will not consider it obligatory,” says he lofty-like, and I just grabs Magpie’s hand in time. “Don’t hold the hand of progress, Ike,” says Magpie. “Can you figure out one good reason why I shouldn’t kill him?” “Except that we don’t know exactly where to ship his remains. He’s from Boston, Magpie, but it ain’t like saying, ‘He’s from Piperock.’ You’ve got to figure that Boston covers considerable space, and until we finds out his home address we better let him suffer. Sabe?” “Where is your home, Ajax?” asks Magpie. “Home? The habitual abode of one’s family?” I lets loose of Magpie’s hand and reached for my own gun, but the coming of Dirty Shirt Jones saves me from killing a fool-hen out of season. Dirty
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