It helped him in his work more'n a little, sometimes, dressing up that way and talking to suit, like he knowed how to, real high-toned talk; but I do believe for a fact he enjoyed the dollars he got out of it less 'n he did the fun it give him making fools of folks by setting up rigs on 'em--he truly being the greatest hand at rigging I ever seen. Somehow--not having the comfort of being able to get drunk half as often as he wanted to--it seemed like he give himself the let-out he needed in them queer antics; and, for certain, he managed 'em always so they went with a hum. When him and the Sage-Brush Hen played partners in rigging anybody--as they was apt to, the Hen being much such another and so special friends with Charley she'd come on after him from Santa Fé--there mostly was a real down spirited game! She was what you might call the leading lady in the Forest Queen dance-hall, the Sage-Brush Hen was; and if you wanted fun, and had to choose between her and a basket of monkeys, all I've got to say is--nobody'd ever a-took the monkeys who knowed the Hen! That girl was up to more queer tricks than anybody of her size and shape--she had a powerful fine shape, the Hen had--I've ever laid eyes on; and she'd run 'em in you so slick and quiet--keeping as demure as a cat after birds while she was doing it--you'd never suspicion anything was happening till you found the whole town laughing its head off at you for being so many kinds of a fool! Things wasn't any time what you might call too extra quiet in Palomitas; but when them two--the Hen and Santa Fé--started in together to run any racket you may bet your life there was a first-class circus from the word go! Grass didn't grow much under their feet, either. The very minute the Hen struck the town--coming on after Santa Fé, same as I've said, and him waiting for her when she got there--they went at their monkey-shining, finishing two-handed what the Hen had started as a lone-hand game. Right along from then on they kept things moving spirited, one way and another, without much of a let-up. And they ended off--the day the two of 'em, owing to circumstances, lit out together--by setting up on all of us what I reckon was the best rig ever set up on anybody anywheres since rigs was begun! Palomitas was a purer town, Cherry said--it was him led off in the purifying--after we was shut of 'em, and of some others that was fired for company; and I won't say he wasn't right in making out it was a better town, maybe, when we'd got it so blame pure. But they had their good points, the Hen and Santa Fé had--and after they was purified out of it some of us didn't never quite feel as if the place was just the same. II THE SAGE-BRUSH HEN