We had up a lot of whisky, and
went to playing high-low-jack for dimes, and as soon
as the whisky begun to take hold of Bud we stopped
drinking, but we didn't let him stop. We loaded him
till he fell out of his chair and laid there snoring.
"We was ready for business now. I said we better
pull our boots off, and his'n too, and not make any
noise, then we could pull him and haul him around and
ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I
set my boots and Bud's side by side, where they'd be
handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams
and his pockets and his socks and the inside of his
boots, and everything, and searched his bundle. Never
found any di'monds. We found the screwdriver, and
Hal says, 'What do you reckon he wanted with that?'
I said I didn't know; but when he wasn't looking I
hooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discour-
aged, and said we'd got to give it up. That was what
I was waiting for. I says:
"'There's one place we hain't searched.'
"'What place is that?' he says.
"'His stomach.'
"'By gracious, I never thought of that! NOW we're
on the homestretch, to a dead moral certainty. How'll
we manage?'
"'Well,' I says, 'just stay by him till I turn out and
hunt up a drug store, and I reckon I'll fetch something
that'll make them di'monds tired of the company
they're keeping.'
"He said that's the ticket, and with him looking
straight at me I slid myself into Bud's boots instead of
my own, and he never noticed.
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