o p'intless speeches.
You say flat what it is he does, or take the consequences.'

"'Why, my dear Missis Rucker,' an' Enright makes haste with his reply,
'the thing is easily grasped. The paper he gives the preacher sharp is
a dog license. Which that Turner person is seekin' to wed the belle of
Sni-a-bar on a permit to keep a dog! The canine party he meets in
Battle Row misonderstands a sityooation.'

"'All the same,' observes Texas to Boggs, as the two meets that
evenin' in the Noo York store, 'thar's one feachure to a dog license,
not perceivable in a marriage license, which is worth gold an'
precious stones. Said docyooment runs out in a year.'"

IX

RED MIKE

"Mebby you-all recalls about that Polish artist person?" suggested the
old cattleman, tentatively; "him I speaks of former?" My gray old
_campanero_ was measuring out what he called his "forty drops," and,
since this ceremony necessitated keeping one eye on his glass, while
he endeavored to keep the other eye on me, the contradictory effort
resulted in a wavering and uncertain expression, not at all in harmony
with his usual positive air. By way of helping conversation, I
confessed to a clear remembrance of the "Polish artist person," and
wound up by urging him to give the particulars concerning that
interesting exile.

"Well," he cautiously returned, "thar ain't nothin' so mighty
thrillin' in his Wolfville c'reer. You see he ain't, for the most, no
pop'lar figure--him bein' a furriner, that a-way, an' a artist, an'
sufferin' besides from conceit in so acoote a form as to make it no
exaggeration to say he's locoed. On account of these yere divers an'
sundry handicaps, he don't achieve no social success, an' while he's
with us, you'd hardly call him of us.

"Not that I objects to this deescendant of Warsaw's last champion,
personal. Which I'm a heap like Enright in sech reespects, an'
shore tol'rant. I finds out long ago that the reason we-all goes
fault-findin' about people, mostly is because we don't onderstand
concernin' them folk's surroundin's. Half the things we arches our
necks over, an' for which mebby we feels like killin' 'em a whole
lot, they can't he'p none. If we only savvys what they're reely up
ag'inst, it's four for one we pities 'em instead.

"It's like one time 'way back yonder, when me an' Steve Stevenson has
a sudden an' abrupt diffukulty with a buffalo bull. We're camped out
on the edge of the Rockies near the Spanish Peak