lit
me into half apples. If I goes to writin' missives that a-way, he'll
locate me; an' you can take my word that invet'rate old homicide 'd
travel to the y'earth's eends to c'llect my skelp. That ain't goin' to
do me; for, much as I love Peggy, I'd a heap sooner be single than
dead.'

"'That party ain't locoed,' says Texas, noddin' towards the Turner
person, whar he sets sobbin' in a cha'r when Enright gets through
examinin' him. 'He's simply a howlin' eediot. Yere he escapes wedlock
by a mir'cle; an'--chains an' slavery!--now he can't think of no
better way to employ his liberty than in cryin' his heart out because
he's free. If I'm bitter, gents, it's because I speaks from hard
experience. Considerin' how she later corrals that Laredo divorce an'
sells up my cattle at public vandoo for costs an' al'mony, if when I
troops to the altar with that lady whom I makes Missis Thompson, my
gyardian angel had gone at me with a axe, that faithful sperit would
have been doin' no more than its simple dooty in the premises.'

"Enright takes it onto himself to squar' the Turner person at the Red
Light an' the O. K. Restauraw; an', since his ensooin' conduct is much
within decent bounds, except that Rucker steps some high an' mighty
when he heaves in sight an' Black Jack gives him hard an' narrow
looks, nothin' su'gestive of trouble occurs. In less'n a week he
shakes down into his proper place, an' all as placid as a duck-pond.
He's even a sort o' fav'rite with Nell, Missis Rucker an' Tucson
Jennie, they claimin' that he's sufferin' from soul blight because of
a lost love. Certainly, thar's nothin' in this yere fem'nine bluff,
but of course none of us don't say so at the time.

"Boggs holds that the Turner person's only a pecooliarly gifted liar,
an' refooses to believe in him. 'Because it's prepost'rous,' says
Boggs, 'that folks would go in to frame up a weddin', an' then, led by
the preacher, take to mobbin' the bridegroom on the very threshold of
them nuptials.'

"'It ain't by no means shore, Dan,' says Texas, to whom Boggs imparts
his convictions, 'but what you've drove the nail. Which if that Parks
household reely has it in for this Turner person, they'd have let him
go the route. Could even the revenge of a fiend ask more than simply
seein' him a married man?'

"In about a fortnight, that Turner person's got fully cooled out, an'
the worst effects of what Red Dog licker he imbibes has disappeared.
As he feels himse'f ap