permitted to go
reecreatin' about the camp.

"'Only,' says the lady, by way of warnin' to Black Jack, 'thar's to be
no drinks.'

"These yere strained conditions preevails for mebby it's five days,
when, as the stage swings in to the post office one evenin', a stout
florid old gent gets out. He comes puffin' up to Peets a heap
soopercilious.

"'Do you-all know a addle-pated an' semi-eediotic young party,' says
he, 'who's named Oscar Freelinghuysen?'

"'Why, yes,' returns Peets, 'I do. Onless my mem'ry's pulled its
picket pin an' gone plumb astray he's the eboolient sharp who
conclooded a somewhat toomultuous courtship last week by gettin'
married. He's in the shank of his honeymoon as we stands chattin'
yere.'

"The florid gent glares at Peets, his feachures the color of liver,
his eyes stickin' out like the eyes of a snail.

"'Married!' he gasps, an' falls in a apoplectic fit.

"It takes a week an' all the drugs Peets has got before that
apoplectic's able to sit up an' call for nosepaint. An' whatever do
you think? His daughter-in-law, but onbeknownsts to him as sech,
nurses him from soda to hock. Oscar Joonior? By advice of Enright that
prodigal's took to cover over in Red Dog ontil we've made shore about
the fatted calf.

"The former Miss Bark puts up that nursin' game with Peets, an' day
an' night she hangs over her apoplectic father-in-law like a painter
over a picture. She's certainly as cunnin' as a pet fox! She dresses
as quiet as a quail an' makes her voice as softly sober as a suckin'
dove's. In the end she's got that patient hypnotized.

"After Peets declar's him out of danger, an' all propped up in his
blankets he's subscribed to mighty likely it's the fifth drink, the
apoplectic begins to shed tears a heap profoose, an' relate to his
nurse--the former Miss Bark--how his two wives has died, leavin' him a
lonely man. She, the former Miss Bark, is his only friend--he
says--an' he winds up his lamentations by recommendin' that she become
his third.

"'You're the only hooman heart who ever onderstands me,' he wails,
gropin' for her hand, 'an' now my ongrateful boy has contracted a
messalliance I shore wants you for my wife.'

"She hangs her head like a flower at night, an' lets on she's a heap
confoosed.

"'Speak,' he pleads; 'tell me that you'll be mine.'

"'Which I'd shore admire to, but I can't,' she murmurs; 'I'm wedded to
your son.'

"The old apoplectic asks for more licker in a dazed wa