s wants to dig him
up, they're welcome. It's their lookout, not mine; an' I ain't got no
love for coyotes no how.'

"'Thar ain't no coyote in Cochise County who's sunk that low he'll eat
him,' says Boggs.

"Like every other outfit, Wolfville sees its hours of sunshine an' its
hours of gloom, its lights an' its shadders. But I'm yere to state
that it never suffers through no more nerve-rackin' eepock than that
which it puts in about Dead Shot an' his wife. She don't bother us so
much as him. It's Dead Shot himse'f, praisin' up the postmaster an'
paintin' the sun-kissed virchoose of his wife, which keeps the sweat
a-pourin' down the commoonal face. An' all that's left us is to stand
pat, an' wait for the finish!

"One day the Wells-Fargo people sends Dead Shot to Santa Fe to take a
money box over to Taos. Two days later, Dead Shot's wife finds she's
got to go visit Tucson. Likewise, the postmaster allows he's been
ordered to Wilcox, to straighten out some deepartmental kinks. Which
we certainly sets thar an' looks at each other!--the play's that
rank.

"The postmaster an' Dead Shot's wife goes rumblin' out on the same
stage. Monte starts to tell us what happens when he returns, but the
old profligate don't get far.

"'Gents,' he says, 'that last trip, when Dead Shot's----'

"'Shet up,' roars Enright, an' Monte shore shets up.

"It comes plenty close to killin' the mis'rable old dipsomaniac at
that. He swells an' he swells, with that pent-up information inside
of him, ontil he looks like a dissipated toad. But sech is his awe of
Enright, he never dar's opens his clamshell.

"It's a week before Dead Shot's wife gets back, an' the postmaster
don't show up till four days more. Then Dead Shot himse'f comes
trackin' in.

"Faro Nell, who's eyes is plumb keen that a-way, lets on to Cherokee
private that Dead Shot looks sorrow-ridden. But I don't know! Dead
Shot's nacherally grave, havin' no humor. A gent who constant goes
messin' round with road agents, shootin' an' bein' shot at, ain't apt
to effervesce. Nell sticks to it, jest the same, that he's onder a
cloud.

"Dead Shot continyoos to play his old system, an' cavorts 'round plumb
friendly with the postmaster, an' goes teeterin' yere an' thar tellin'
what a boon from heaven on high his wife is, same as former.

"Faro Nell shakes her head when Cherokee mentions this last:

"'That's his throw-off,' she says.

"One evenin' Dead Shot comes trailin' into the Red L