One hour later Dipper and Stan sat at a booth in a greasy spoon diner a couple of miles down the road. Stan had just finished off his steak and eggs and was now sipping some black coffee, while Dipper picked at his smiley face pancakes, anxiously.

"What's the matter, boy? Why aren't you eating? I thought that was your favorite," said Stan.

"I'm just worried about the whole breaking and entering and stealing... thing," said Dipper with more than a little sass in his voice.

"Quit your worrying. All will go like clockwork," said Stan with a wave of his hand. Then he looked out the window. The sun had already begun to set behind some mountains and the sky was a beautiful mix of purple, pink, and blue.

"Speaking of," said Stan. "I guess we should get going. We'll put those pancakes in a doggy bag."

After paying the bill and getting Dipper's food to go, the two Pines men hopped into Stan's El Diablo and drove back down the lonely stretch of dessert highway towards Reggie Coyote's trailer. By the time they got there, night had completely fallen and out in the middle of nowhere it was hard to see anything. But the glint of the car's headlights on the aluminum of the Airstream trailer easily told them they had arrived.

As he pulled off the road, Stan frowned. Parked in front of Reggie's trailer was Captain Spaulding's old, red truck.

"That sneaky son of a... clown," Stan said, realizing Dipper was right next to him.

"Looks like you've met your match," said Dipper.

"We'll see about that," said Stan. He lightly pressed his foot down on the gas peddle and quietly drove around to the back of the trailer.

"What are you doing?" asked Dipper.

"Just wait here," said Stan, putting the car in park and exiting his door.

"But-" protested Dipper, but Stan cut him off with a "Shhh!"

Stan quietly tip-toed through the sand over to one of the trailer's open windows. As soon as he approached it he could hear the sound of arguing inside. It was Captain Spaulding and Reggie Coyote. Stan couldn't make out what they were saying since it seemed like they were at the other end of the trailer, but it definitely sounded like Spaulding was being very aggressive towards the old hippie. Stan carefully peaked in the window to see what he could see, and as luck would have it, sitting there on a night stand, right in front of his face was the jar containing the Skunk Ape paw.

"Hehehe," Stan chuckled to himself.

He reached inside and grabbed the jar, then quickly made his way back to the car.

"That was easy," Dipper said, incredulously, as Stan got behind the wheel and handed the jar to him.

"Sometimes life is like that," said Stan. "Fortune favors the brave... and all that junk."

Just then there was a load BANG from inside the trailer and a flash of light could be seen through the windows.

"Was that a gunshot?" asked Dipper.

"Uh, let's get out of here," said Stan, starting the car.

He slammed his foot down on the gas and peeled out of there in a cloud of dust. As the car drove around to the front of the trailer and past the red truck, Dipper saw Baby's head pop up inside the cab. She leaned out the window and started yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!"

Captain Spaulding bounded out of the trailer with a pistol in his hand. He didn't ask questions, he just started firing at the El Diablo as it pulled onto the road and sped away. After three shots, he stopped, either because he was out of bullets, or because it was too dark to aim properly at such a far away target. Either way, he holstered his gun, jumped in the truck and started it up.

"I told you to keep lookout, Babygirl, why didn't you yell when you saw those summabitches?" he demanded.

"I fell asleep," Baby said with a shrug.

Captain Spaulding sighed and then drove the truck forward onto the road and started pursuing the Pines.

Meanwhile, in the El Diablo, Dipper was in a panic.

"Oh great, now we''re gonna die in Arizona, shot by a killer clown, and I won't even get a chance to say goodbye to Mabel, or Wendy, or Pacifica," he said, mostly to himself.

"Calm down, boy, we are not gonna get shot," said Stan, just as his side mirror was shot off.

He looked in the rear view mirror and could just make out headlights in the distance gaining on he and his nephew. He swerved into the left lane in case another shot was coming. Dipper instinctively opened his book and turned to the part about clowns. All it said was that they are not funny. He slammed the book shut in frustration and threw it in the backseat where he had also put the jar. Stan checked the mirror again and saw that the truck had joined them in the left lane and was now about twenty feet behind them, so he swerved back into the right lane. Dipper, who still had a side mirror, looked in it and could faintly see in the darkness that Baby was hanging out of the passenger side window of the truck holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

"That crazy girl is the one shooting at us," he said to his grunkle.

"Good teamwork," was all Stan said back.

Just then, another shot hit the trunk of the El Diablo, blowing a large hole in it. Stan would have swerved back into the left lane, except a car was coming and he couldn't, so instead he swerved right and drove off the road into the dessert. Captain Spaulding and his daughter followed right after them.

"He really wants that paw," said Dipper. "Maybe you should just give it to him."

"Oh yeah, I'll just throw it out the window and hope he catches it," Stan said, sarcastically.

"Wait a minute, I have an idea," said Dipper.

Stan jerked the wheel left and did a donut in the sand kicking up so much of it that it was hard to see where he was going, but he knew Spaulding had done the same and was now following them back towards the road because he saw the truck's headlights in the mirror. Dipper unbuckled his seat belt and reached down to the floor of the car. His hands scrambled around for something, but he couldn't find it. The car and the truck both returned to the road roughly and it almost sent Dipper flying forward onto his face, but he caught his balance. Meanwhile in the truck, Captain Spaulding smiled a deranged smile as he got closer and closer to the Pines' car. Baby was reloading the shot gun.

"I'll git 'em this time, Daddy," she said, confidently.

Dipper leaned down as far as he could and reached under his seat. Finally his hands touched what he had been looking for: a plastic bag containing a styrofoam box with pancakes in it. He rolled down his window, took the box out of the bag and threw it out the window. Then he checked his mirror. Sure enough the box hit the windshield of the truck behind them, exploded, and covered the glass in syrup, pancakes, whip cream and strawberry's. Captain Spaulding swerved suddenly causing Baby to drop the gun and fall back into the truck. Stan watched in the rear view mirror and laughed as his new enemy came to a stop on the side of the road.

"Way to go, kid," he said to Dipper.

Instead of "thank you", Dipper just yelled, "Look out!" and pointed ahead at a large, hairy thing that had suddenly stepped into the road in front of them. Stan turned just in time to see it and hit the breaks, but the car still skidded into the large thing as if it was a brick wall. Dipper flew forward and banged against the dashboard, and Stan, who had his seat belt still on, was jerked forward then back, hitting his head on the his headrest.

After a minute Stan took off his seat belt and asked, "You okay?"

"Yes," said Dipper from the passenger side floor.

"What WAS that?" said Stan. He stepped out of the car and ran around to the front. The hood was dented and the the windshield had a crack in it, but the car wasn't totaled. Stan looked around for the animal, or whatever it was he had hit, but couldn't see anything. All he saw was Captain Spaulding walk up to him suddenly and shove him hard.

"You're one ballsy son of a bitch," said Spaulding, almost in admiration.

Baby came running up behind him.

"Git 'em, Daddy," she shouted.

"Look, if you want the paw so bad, you can have it," said Stan.

Just then, Dipper came out of the car carrying the jar.

"Damn right we can," said Baby, grabbing it out of Dipper's hands. Dipper made an angry face at her.

"Actually, I want you to have it," said Captain Spaulding.

"What?" said everyone, including Baby.

"Yeah, it's really all about the chase for me and you gave one helluva chase, pardner, I tell you what," said Spaulding with a laugh. "As one collector of the strange to another, why don't you take that on home to your mystery shack and tell everyone how you almost died to get it."

"Well that's... surprisingly nice of you," said Stan.

"I have a soft spot for family men," said Captain Spaulding, looking over at Dipper and Baby.

"You like clowns?" Spaulding asked Dipper.

Dipper shook his head no.

"What's the matter, don't we make ya laugh? Aren't we fucking funny?" said Spaulding, then to Stan he said, "Now get the hell out of here, the both of ya, before I change my mind." Then he started clacking his teeth together and went, "Yayayayayayaya," which dissolved into maniacal laughter that Baby started to echo. Stan rushed towards Dipper, who grabbed the jar back from Baby, and both of them got back into the car. After a few tries it started up again and Stan and Dipper Pines drove off as fast as they could in the direction of Gravity Falls.

Spaulding and Baby stood laughing together in the darkness until the El Diablo was out of site, then Baby asked her father, "Why'd you let them have the paw? It was as good as ours."

"Fuck, Baby, we don't need the paw when we can have an entire Mogollon Monster."

Baby looked quizzically at Captainn Spaulding who only pointed into the distance where the El Diablo had been sitting. Standing there, watching them, hidden by darkness, except for it's gleaming eyes, was a seven foot tall beast with dark hair and the face of a gorilla.

"Idiots didn't even realize what they hit," said Spaulding. Now run back a-ways and get that shotgun."

The End