"One day, with unruffled brow an' an air all careless an' free, Curly Ben rides into Wolfville an' begins orderin' whiskey at the Red Light before he's hardly cl'ar of the saddle. Thar ain't nobody in camp, from Doc Peets to Missis Rucker, but what's eager to know the finish of Curly's expedition, but of course everybody hobbles his feelin's in them behalfs. It's Captain Moon's fooneral, an' he oughter have a first, oninterrupted say. Moon comes up to Curly Ben where Curly is cuttin' the alkali dust outen his throat at the Red Light bar. "'Did you get him?' Moon asks after a few p'lite preeliminaries. 'Did you bring back his ha'r an' y'ears like we agrees?' "'Have you-all got the other thousand ready,' says Curly Ben. 'in the event I do?' "'Right yere in my war-bags,' says Moon, 'awaitin' to make good for your tine an' talent an' trouble in revengin' my pore nephy's deemise by way of them insecks.' An' Moon slaps his pocket as locatin' the dinero. "'Well, I don't get him,' says Curly Ben ca'mly, settin' his glass on the bar. "Thar's a pause of mebby two minutes, doorin' which Moon looks cloudy, as though he don't like the way the kyards is comin'; Curly Ben, on his part, is smilin' like what Huggins calls 'one of his songstresses' over in the Bird Cage Op'ry House. After a bit, Moon resoomes them investigations. "'Don't I give you four stacks of reds an' a pony,' he says, 'to reepair to that murderer an' floor-manage his obsequies? An' don't I promise you eight stacks more when you reports with that outcast's y'ears an' ha'r, as showin' good faith?' "'C'rrect; every word,' says Curly Ben, lightin' a seegyar an then leanin' his elbows on the bar, a heap onmoved. "'Which I would admire to know, then,' says Moon, an' his eyes is gettin' little an' hard, 'why you-all don't made good them compacts.' "'Well, I'll onfold the reasons an' make it as plain an' cl'ar an' convincin' as a spade flush,' says Curly Ben. 'When I gets to this yere victim of ours, I finds him to be a mighty profoose an' lavish form of sport. The moment I'm finished explainin' to him my mission, an' jest as I onlimbers my six-shooter to get him where he lives, he offers me five thousand dollars to come back yere an' kill you. Nacherally, after that, me an' this yere subject of our plot takes a few drinks, talks it over, an' yere I be.' "'But what be you aimin' to do?' asks Moon. "'What be you aimin' to do?' responds Curly Ben. As I states, he's shore the most ornery coyote! "'I don't onderstand,' says Moon. "'Why it's as obv'ous,' retorts Curly Ben, 'as the Fence Rail brand, an' that takes up the whole side of a cow. The question now is, do you raise this yere gent? He raises you as I explains; now do you quit, or tilt him, say, a thousand better?' "'An' suppose I don't?' says Moon, sort o' figgerin' for a moment or so. 'What do you reckon now would be your next move?'