A Bargain with Peg-Leg quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which genre best describes "A Bargain with Peg-Leg"?

   • Correct answer: Western Tall Tale
   • Gothic Horror
   • Romantic Realism
   • Social Satire
   • Adventure Romance

   Western Tall Tale is the perfect fit: a frame narrator spins a bar-room yarn about an outlandish frontier character, using cowboy dialect, broad comedy, sudden violence, and a dark punchline ending — all hallmarks of the genre.

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2. 2

   Question 2. How does Peg-Leg Smith enforce his no-swearing rule among Arizona miners?

   • He reports offenders to the sheriff and demands they pay a fine
   • He memorizes names and publicly shames habitual swearers at camp meetings
   • Correct answer: He beats up anyone he hears swear, regardless of their size or reputation
   • He hands out written warnings and bans repeat offenders from local saloons

   Peg-Leg is a self-appointed vigilante who enforces his personal code with his fists — or rather, his wooden leg. He beats any man he hears swear, making him feared throughout the mining camps despite his disability.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What is Bunt McBride's role in the story?

   • He is a traveling journalist who investigates Peg-Leg's vigilante activities
   • Correct answer: He is the frame narrator who tells Peg-Leg's story from his own firsthand experience
   • He is a deputy sheriff tasked with stopping Peg-Leg's violent behavior
   • He is Peg-Leg's loyal companion who witnesses the hotel fire from the street

   Bunt McBride is the frame narrator — a hard-bitten miner who tells the whole tale in his own rough voice and dialect. The story is his personal account of tangling with Peg-Leg and eventually being freed from their bargain by Peg-Leg's death.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Where does the bar fight between Bunt and Peg-Leg take place?

   • A saloon in Tucson
   • A mining camp outside Tombstone
   • Correct answer: Bud's saloon in Yuma
   • A roadhouse along the Gila River

   The brawl happens at Bud's saloon in Yuma — the town on the Colorado River where Bunt accidentally grabs Peg-Leg's wooden leg and flings it out the back window into the canyon below.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does Bunt do with Peg-Leg's wooden leg after accidentally pulling it off?

   • Correct answer: He throws it out the back window into the Colorado River canyon below
   • He locks it in the saloon's back room and bars the door behind him
   • He snaps it in two across the bar and scatters the pieces in the street
   • He keeps it as a trophy and uses it to bargain from the start

   In the heat of the fight, Bunt flings the wooden leg — and then Peg-Leg's revolver — out the back window into the canyon. This leaves Peg-Leg hopping helplessly and disarmed, which is what makes the subsequent bargain possible.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does "Vernacular" mean in this story?

   • Formal written language used in legal or official documents
   • Correct answer: Everyday speech of a particular group, region, or social class
   • Exaggerated language designed to flatter or impress the listener
   • Technical jargon used by specialists in a particular trade

   Vernacular is the everyday spoken language of a particular group or region. Norris writes Bunt's narration in frontier vernacular — contractions, dropped letters, cowboy slang — to give the story authenticity and to characterize Bunt as an uneducated but vivid storyteller.

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7. 7

   Question 7. How does the wooden leg get recovered after Bunt throws it into the canyon?

   • Bunt himself climbs down the canyon as part of the bargain he proposes
   • A deputy sheriff organizes a search party and hauls it up with ropes
   • Peg-Leg hires a trapper who rappels the canyon wall and fetches it for pay
   • Correct answer: A local Mexican boy climbs down the canyon and brings the leg back up

   A Mexican boy — presumably attracted by the commotion or the promise of a reward — climbs down into the Colorado River canyon and retrieves the wooden leg. His return of the leg restores Peg-Leg's mobility, which is what makes the bargain necessary: Bunt must offer something valuable to keep Peg-Leg from retaliating.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What does Bunt promise Peg-Leg in exchange for his life?

   • Correct answer: To never swear again for as long as Peg-Leg is alive
   • To pay Peg-Leg a monthly sum of money from his mining wages
   • To leave Arizona territory forever and never return to the camps
   • To spread word of Peg-Leg's no-swearing code throughout the Southwest

   Bunt's bargain is simple: he vows never to curse again for as long as Peg-Leg lives. It is a deal made entirely under duress — Peg-Leg wants at least one "convert" — and Bunt honors it for three years until Peg-Leg's death releases him.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does Bunt reveal about Peg-Leg's character shortly after the bargain is struck?

   • That Peg-Leg cheats at cards and steals from the miners he claims to protect
   • That Peg-Leg was actually a former outlaw who invented the no-swearing crusade as a cover story
   • Correct answer: That Peg-Leg kills a Mojave boy just one week after making the bargain with Bunt
   • That Peg-Leg has been secretly collecting money from saloon owners who pay him to terrorize rivals

   Bunt reveals that just one week after the bargain, Peg-Leg kills a Mojave boy — making his anti-swearing crusade look utterly hypocritical. A man violent enough to murder is not a moral reformer; his enforcement of manners is simply another outlet for brutality.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does "Duress" mean in this story?

    • A formal legal contract signed before witnesses with full understanding of its terms
    • A generous agreement reached between two parties who both benefit equally
    • Correct answer: Pressure, threat, or force that compels someone to act against their free will
    • A moral code voluntarily adopted after a moment of genuine spiritual conviction

    Duress means being coerced by threat or force. Bunt's vow is made entirely under duress — he promises to stop swearing because Peg-Leg will beat him senseless if he doesn't. The story uses this to explore whether obligations made under threat carry genuine moral weight.

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11. 11

    Question 11. Where is Peg-Leg staying when the fatal hotel fire breaks out?

    • The Colorado River Inn in Yuma, Arizona, the same town where Bunt took his leg
    • Correct answer: The Golden West Hotel in Sonora, a town just south of the Arizona border
    • A boarding house in Tombstone, near the silver mines where Peg-Leg worked
    • A tent saloon outside Tucson, which catches fire during a dry summer storm

    Three years after the bargain, Peg-Leg is on the fourth floor of the Golden West Hotel in Sonora, Arizona, when fire breaks out. This distance from Yuma and the passage of time reinforce the idea that Peg-Leg's reach — and his power over Bunt — extended even across state lines and years.

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12. 12

    Question 12. Why does Peg-Leg jump from the burning hotel?

    • Correct answer: A voice from the crowd tells him to jump because they have a blanket below to catch him
    • He panics and leaps without thinking, unable to see through the thick smoke
    • Bunt himself is in the crowd and shouts instructions to lure him out of the building
    • He ties sheets together and tries to climb down but the knot slips and he falls

    Someone in the crowd shouts up to Peg-Leg: "Hey, Peg-leg, jump! We got a blanket here." He believes them and jumps. The punchline, delivered with deadpan calm by Bunt, is that they had no blanket — making his death as darkly absurd as his life.

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13. 13

    Question 13. How does Bunt feel about Peg-Leg's death?

    • Deeply saddened, because Peg-Leg was the only person who ever made him a better man
    • Horrified and wracked with guilt, because he feels responsible for the bargain that trapped them both
    • Indifferent, because he had almost forgotten about the vow by the time three years had passed
    • Correct answer: Relieved and satisfied — freed from his vow and glad that a killer met his end

    Bunt is both relieved and satisfied. His no-swearing vow ends the moment Peg-Leg dies, freeing him from a constraint he found burdensome. And knowing Peg-Leg was "black-bad" — a killer — means Bunt feels no moral obligation to mourn him. The cheerful tone of his storytelling makes this clear.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What does Peg-Leg's power over the miners ultimately depend on?

    • His fearsome reputation built over years of confrontations that nobody dared to challenge
    • His alliance with local sheriffs who turned a blind eye to his vigilante activities
    • His genuine physical strength, which is why Bunt only defeats him by using a weapon
    • Correct answer: A physical prop — the wooden leg — without which he is instantly harmless and disarmed

    Peg-Leg's entire power rests on the wooden leg. The instant it is removed, he cannot stand, cannot fight, and cannot pursue. Norris uses this to make a comic but pointed observation: intimidation often rests on a prop or an illusion, and removing that prop collapses the whole structure of fear.

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15. 15

    Question 15. Which literary device does Norris use by having Bunt tell the story in his own rough frontier dialect?

    • Dramatic irony, because the reader knows something Bunt does not
    • Correct answer: Frame narrative, because a character inside the story tells the tale to an implied listener
    • Stream of consciousness, because Bunt's thoughts unspool without structure or order
    • Allegory, because Bunt and Peg-Leg each represent a clear moral abstraction

    A frame narrative is a story-within-a-story structure where one character narrates events to an implied audience. Bunt McBride is that frame narrator — he addresses someone (and by extension, the reader) in bar-room style. This device lets Norris use frontier dialect authentically and gives the dark punchline its deadpan punch.

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16. 16

    Question 16. What does the story suggest about Peg-Leg's anti-swearing crusade?

    • It is a sincere if misguided moral mission that Peg-Leg genuinely believes will improve the frontier
    • It is a purely commercial scheme — Peg-Leg charges saloon owners to keep their customers in line
    • Correct answer: It is a mask of moral authority that conceals a violent nature far worse than mere swearing
    • It is an eccentric hobby that Peg-Leg pursues for entertainment with no real conviction behind it

    Peg-Leg is a hypocrite: he enforces a petty moral code with violence and then commits actual murder. Norris uses this to satirize moral reformers who are themselves more corrupt than those they police. The anti-swearing crusade is a costume, not a conscience.

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17. 17

    Question 17. What does "Tall Tale" mean in this story?

    • Correct answer: A humorous story featuring exaggerated characters and improbable events rooted in frontier life
    • A factual account of frontier history written in plain, unembellished language
    • A morality fable in which virtuous characters are rewarded and wicked ones are punished
    • A detailed realistic portrait of working-class life on the American frontier

    A tall tale is a comic folk narrative featuring wildly exaggerated characters and improbable situations, rooted in the culture of a particular region. Peg-Leg Smith — who cut off his own leg, carved a replacement, and then spent a decade policing frontier speech with his fists — fits the tall-tale hero (or anti-hero) perfectly.

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18. 18

    Question 18. What is the central irony of Peg-Leg's character?

    • Correct answer: He uses extreme violence to punish a minor offense, making him more brutal than those he condemns
    • He is secretly a coward who only attacks men who are already drunk or asleep
    • He profits financially from his moral crusade by accepting bribes from saloon owners
    • He cannot actually tell when people are swearing because he is partially deaf

    The central irony is that Peg-Leg punishes swearing — a social offense — with beatings and, it turns out, murder. His enforcement of manners is far more violent and harmful than the offense itself. This is what Norris calls moral hypocrisy: the reformer is worse than those he reforms.

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19. 19

    Question 19. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • Bunt deliberately pulls off Peg-Leg's wooden leg to humiliate him.

      Didn't happen

      Bunt pulls off the leg accidentally during the bar fight — he grabs it not knowing how attached it is. The accident, not a plan, gives him the upper hand.

    • The wooden leg ends up in the Colorado River canyon after Bunt throws it out a window.

      Happened

      Bunt flings the leg out the back window of Bud's saloon in Yuma, and it lodges in the canyon — not far enough to be lost, which is what makes the story's tension possible.

    • Bunt's bargain requires him to pay Peg-Leg money every month.

      Didn't happen

      The bargain is behavioral, not financial: Bunt vows never to swear again for as long as Peg-Leg lives. Money never enters the deal.

    • Peg-Leg kills a Mojave boy shortly after striking the bargain with Bunt.

      Happened

      Within a week of the bargain, Peg-Leg kills a Mojave boy — confirming Bunt's verdict that he was "black-bad inside of him" and exposing the hypocrisy of the anti-swearing crusade.

    • The story is narrated by a third-person observer who witnessed the events from a distance.

      Didn't happen

      Bunt McBride narrates in the first person — he is a participant in the events, not a distant observer. His rough frontier voice and personal stake in the tale are central to the story's tone.

    • Peg-Leg jumps from a burning building believing a blanket will catch him.

      Happened

      A voice from the crowd shouts that they have a blanket. Peg-Leg — unable to see through the smoke — jumps. Bunt's deadpan delivery of the punchline (there was no blanket) makes it the story's darkest comedy.

    • Bunt feels grief-stricken when he hears about Peg-Leg's death.

      Didn't happen

      Bunt is relieved and even cheerful about Peg-Leg's death. It frees him from the no-swearing vow, and knowing Peg-Leg was a killer, Bunt has no reason to mourn.

    • The real historical Peg-Leg Smith was a mountain man and horse thief who cut off his own leg.

      Happened

      Thomas Long "Peg-Leg" Smith (1801-1866) was a real frontier figure who amputated his own leg after a gunfight. Norris borrowed the name and the prosthetic but invented the anti-swearing crusade.

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