"Well, we didn't do much fishing that day--couldn't get a bite, for that matter--and took on home about noon to talk it over. You see, the Boss, in buying the privileges or such for that creek, had made himself responsible to the Fish Commissioners of the State, and 'twasn't a week before they were after him, camping on his trail incessant, and wanting to know how about it. The Boss was some worried, because the fish were being killed right along, and the Commission was making him weary of living. Twicet afterward we prospected along that river and found the same lot of dead fish. We even put a guard there, but it didn't do no manner of good. "It's the Boss who first suspicions Cock-eye. But it don't take no seventh daughter of no seventh daughter to trace trouble where Black-lock's about. He sudden shows up in town with a bunch of simoleons, buying bacon and tin cows [Footnote: Condensed milk.] and such provender, and generally giving it away that he's come into money. The Boss, who's watching his movements sharp, says to me one day: "'Bunt, the storm-centre of this here low area is a man with a cock-eye, an' I'll back that play with a paint horse against a paper dime.' "'No takers,' says I. 'Dirty work and a cock-eyed man are two heels of the same mule.' "'Which it's a-kicking of me in the stummick frequent and painful,' he remarks, plenty wrathful. "'On general principles,' I said, 'it's a royal flush to a pair of deuces as how this Blacklock bird ought to stop a heap of lead, and I know the man to throw it. He's the only brother of my sister, and tends chuck in a placer mine. How about if I take a day off and drop round to his cabin and interview him on the fleetin' and unstable nature of human life?' "But the Boss wouldn't hear of that. "'No,' says he; 'that's not the bluff to back in this game. You an' me an' 'Mary-go-round'--that was what we called the marshal, him being so much all over the country--'you an' me an' Mary-go-round will have to stock a sure-thing deck against that maverick.' "So the three of us gets together an' has a talky-talk, an' we lays it out as how Cock-eye must be watched and caught red-handed.