tumbles in on us with the
brake off like a stage-coach downhill.

"'Dan's treed Chihuahua!' gasps Nell, as she heads straight for
Cherokee; 'you-all better rustle over thar plumb soon!'

"Cherokee jumps an' grabs his hardware where they're layin' onder the
table. Bein' daylight an' no game goin', an' the day some warm
besides, he ain't been wearin' 'em, bein' as you-all might say in
negligee. Cherokee buckles on his belts in a second an' starts; the
rest of us, however, since we're more ackerately garbed, don't lose no
time an' is already half way to Dan.

"It ain't a two-minute run an' we arrives in time. Thar's no more
blood, though thar might have been, for we finds Dan frontin' up to
full two hundred Greasers, their numbers increasin' and excitement
runnin' a heap high. We cuts in between Dan an' Mexican public opinion
and extricates that over-vol'tile sport.

"But Dan won't return ontil he exhoomes the chicken, which is still
bobbin' an' twistin' its onharmed head where the Mexican buries it.
Dan digs it up an' takes it by the laigs; Enright meanwhile cussin' him
out, fervent an' nervous, for he fears some locoed Greaser will cut
loose every moment an' mebby crease a gent, an' so leave it incumbent
on the rest of us to desolate Chihuahua.

"'It's for Nell,' expostulates Dan, replyin' to Enright's criticisms.
'I knows she wants it by the way she grabs my coat that time.
Moreover, from the tones she speaks in, I reckons she wants it alive.
Also, I don't discern no excoose for this toomult neither; which
you-all is shore the most peevish bunch, Enright, an' that's whatever!'

"'Peevish or no,' retorts Enright, 'as a jedge of warjigs I figgers
that we gets here jest in time. Thar you be, up ag'inst the entire
tribe, an' each one with a gun. It's one of the deefects of a Colt's
six-shooter that it hits as hard an' shoots as troo for a Injun or a
Greaser as it does for folks. Talk about us bein' peevish! what do
you-all reckon would have been results if we hadn't cut in on the
_baile_ at the time we does?'

"'Nothin',' says Dan, with tones of soopreme vanity, at the same time
dustin' the dirt off Nell's chicken, 'nothing except I'd hung crape on
half the dobies in Chihuahua.'

"About two hours after, when things ag'in simmers to the usual, an'
Nell is makin' her chicken a coop out to the r'ar of the Red Light,
Enright gives a half laugh.

"'Dan,' says Enright, 'when I reflects on the hole we drug you o