f I shuns all sech. I won't say them
erratic, quick-to-kill sports don't have courage; only it strikes
me--an' I've rode up on a heap of 'em--it's more like a fear-bit
f'rocity than sand.

"Take Enright or Peets or Cherokee or Tutt or Jack Moore or Boggs or
Texas Thompson; you're plumb safe with sech gents--all or any. An' yet
thar ain't the first glimmer of bein' gun-shy about one of 'em; they're
as clean strain as the eternal granite, an' no more likely to hide out
from danger than a hill. An' while they differs from each other, yet
they're all different from sech folks as Silver Phil. Boggs, goin' to
war, is full of good-humoured grandeur, gala and confident, ready to
start or stop like a good hoss. Cherokee Hall is quiet an' wordless;
he gets pale, but sharp an' deadly; an' his notion is to fight for a
finish. Peets is haughty an' sooperior on the few o'casions when he
onbends in battle, an' comports himse'f like a gent who fights
downhill; the same, ondoubted, bein' doo to them book advantages of
Peets which elevates him an' lifts him above the common herd a whole
lot. Enright who's oldest is of course slowest to embark in blood, an'
pulls his weepons--when he does pull 'em--with sorrowful resignation.

"'Which I'm shorely saddest when I shoots,' says Enright to me, as he
reloads his gun one time.

"These yere humane sentiments, however, don't deter him from shootin'
soon an' aimin' low, which latter habits makes Wolfville's honoured
chief a highly desp'rate game to get ag'inst.

"Jack Moore, bein' as I explains former, the execyootive of the
Stranglers, an' responsible for law an' order, has a heap of shootin'
shoved onto him from time to time. Jack allers transacts these
fireworks with a ca'm, offishul front, the same bein' devoid, equal, of
anger or regrets. Tutt, partic'lar after he weds Tucson Jennie, an'
more partic'lar still when he reaps new honours as the originator of
that blessed infant Enright Peets Tutt, carries on what shootin' comes
his way in a manner a lot dignified an' lofty; while Texas
Thompson--who's mebby morbid about his wife down in Laredo demandin'
she be divorced that time--although he picks up his hand in a fracas,
ready an' irritable an' with no delays, after all is that well-balanced
he's bound to be each time plumb right.

"Which, you observes, son, from these yere settin's forth, that thar's
a mighty sight of difference between gents like them pards of mine an'
degen'ra