"'Then you lose,' insists Dave, mighty prompt.

"'But hold on,' says Dan; 'don't get your chips down so quick. As I
starts to explain, I ain't locked up; but it's because I'm in a camp
like Wolfville yere that ain't sunk to the level of no calaboose. But
what comes to be the same, I'm taken captive an' held as sech ontil the
roodiments of Western sense is done beat into me. It takes the
yoonited efforts of four of the soonest sharps that ever happens; an'
final, they succeeds to a p'int that I'm deemed cap'ble of goin' about
alone.'

"'Well,' retorts Dave, 'I won't dispoote with you; an' even at that I
regyards your present attitoode as one of bluff. I thinks you're shore
the cunnin'est wolf in the territory, Dan, an' allers is. But, as I'm
sayin', when I first begins to infest Tucson, I'm so ignorant it's a
stain on that meetropolis. At this yere epock, Tucson ain't spraddled
to its present proud dimensions. A gent might have thrown the loop of
a lariat about the outfit an' drug it after him with a pony. No one,
however, performs this labour, as the camp is as petyoolant as a
t'rant'ler an' any onauthorised dalliance with its sensibilities would
have led to vivid plays. Still, she ain't big, Tucson ain't; an' I
learns my way about from centre to suburbs in the first ten minutes.

"'At the beginnin' I'm a heap timid. I suffers from the common eastern
theery an' looks on Arizona as a region where it's murder straight an'
lynchin' for a place. You-all may jedge from that how erroneous is my
idees. Then, as now, the distinguishin' feacher of Tucson existence is
a heavenly ca'm. Troo, thar's moments when the air nacherally fills up
with bullets like they're a passel of swallow-birds, an' they hums an'
sings their merry madrigals. However, these busy seasons don't set in
so often nor last so long but peaceful folks has ample chance to
breathe.

"'Never does I b'ar witness to as many as seven contemporaneous
remainders but once; and then thar's cause. It's in a poker game; an'
the barkeep brings the dealer a cold deck onder a tray whereon he
purveys the drinks. Which the discovery of this yere solecism, as
you-all well imagines, arouses interest, earnest an' widespread like I
deescribes. I counts up when the smoke lifts an' finds that seven has
sought eternal peace. Commonly two is the number; three bein' quite a
shipment. Shore, it's speshul sickly when as many as seven quits out
together!

"'Bein'