eevised to 'liminate the feminine element
from these yere meetin's. I says this before, but the idee don't seem
to take no root. Thar's nothin' lovelier than woman, but by virchoo
of her symp'thies she's oncap'ble of exact jestice. Her feelin's lead
her, an' her heart's above her head. For which reasons, while I
wouldn't favor nothin' so ondignified as hidin' out, I s'ggests that
we be yereafter more circumspect, not to say surreptitious, in our
deelib'rations.'

"Shore, they're married. The cer'mony comes off in the O. K. House,
an' folks flocks in from as far away as Deming.

"'If you was a chemist, Sam,' says Peets, tryin' to eloocidate what
happens when the Mockin' Bird learns she's heart-hungry that a-way for
Turkey Track, 'you'd onderstand. It's as though her love's held in
s'lootion, an' the jar of Turkey Track's gun preecip'tates it.'

"'Mebby so,' returns Enright; 'but as a play, this thing's got me
facin' back'ards. Thar's many schemes to win a lady, but this yere's
the earliest instance when a gent shoots his way into her arms.'

"'Well,' returns Peets, 'you know the old adage--to which of course
thar's exceptions.' Yere he glances over at Missis Rucker. 'It runs:

"A woman, a spaniel an' a walnut tree,
The more you beat 'em the better they be."

"Boggs has been congratchoolatin' Turkey Track, an' kissin' the bride.
Texas, as somber as a spade flush, draws Boggs into a corner.

"'That Turkey Track,' says Texas, 'considers this a whipsaw. He misses
hangin', an' he gets the lady. He feels like he wins both ways. Wait!
Dan, it won't be two years when he'll discover that, compar'd to
marriage, hangin' that a-way ain't nothin' more'n a technical'ty.'"

VI

THAT WOLFVILLE-RED DOG FOURTH

"By nacher I'm a patriot, cradle born and cradle bred; my Americanism,
second to none except that of wolves an' rattlesnakes an' Injuns an'
sim'lar cattle, comes in the front door an' down the middle aisle; an'
yet, son, I'm free to reemark that thar's one day in the year, an'
sometimes two, when I shore reegrets our independence, an' wishes thar
had been no Yorktown an' never no Bunker Hill."

The old cattleman tasted his glass with an air weary to the borders of
dejection; after which he took a pathetic puff at his pipe. I knew
what had gone wrong. This was the Fifth of July. We had just survived
a Fourth of unusual explosiveness, and the row and racket thereof had
worn threadbare