es to perpetchooate me to
poster'ty as a common jeer.'

"Shore; these yere protests of Monte's ain't more'n half on the level.
After a fashion, he's plenty pleased.

"'For,' he says, confidin' in Black Jack over his licker, 'it ain't
every longhorn of a stage driver whose picture is took by one of these
yere gifted Yooropeans.'

"Black Jack agrees to this in full, for he's a good-hearted barkeep,
that a-way.

"In doo time the picture's hung up back of the Red Light bar.
Regyarded as a portrait it's shore some desp'rate, an' even Enright
sort o' half reepents. Monte, after studyin' it a while, begins to get
sore in earnest. Them scales, like the scriptoors say, certainly do
fall from his eyes.

"'Jack,' he says, appealin' to Moore, who happens to be present, 'does
that thing look like me?'

"'Why, yes,' Jack replies, squintin' his left eye a heap critical; 'to
be shore it flatters you some, but then them artists gen'rally does.'

"'Jack, if I'm that feeble as to go believin' what you says, I'd borry
a shotgun from the express company and blow off the top of my head.
That ain't the portrait of no hooman bein"--an' Monte raises a
dispa'rin' hand at the picture; 'it's a croode preesentation of some
onnacheral cross between a coyote and a cowskin trunk.'

"Cherokee gets up from behind his lay-out, an' strolls over so's to
get a line on the picture. He takes a long an' disparagin' survey.

"'It ain't that I'm incitin' you to voylence, Monte,' he remarks
final, 'but if you owes a dooty to s'ciety, don't forget that you owes
also a dooty to yourse'f. You'll be lackin' in se'f-respect if you
don't give Sam Enright two weeks to take that outrage down, an' if it
ain't removed by then you'll bust it.'

"Black Jack is ag'in the picture, too.

"'Not,' he says, 'that I wants to put the smother on it entire; only I
figger it'd look better in the post office, folks not makin' it so
much of a hangout. Regyarded commercial, it's a setback to the Red
Light. Some gent comes trackin' up intent on drinks, an' feelin' gala.
After one glance at Monte up thar it's all off. That reveller's
changed his mind, an' staggers out into the open ag'in without a word.
The joint is daily knocked for about the price of a stack of bloos, as
the direct result of that work of art. Which I'd as soon have a gila
monster in the winder.'

"Mike ain't present none when all this yere flattery is flyin'. If he
was thar in person nothin' would have bee