"That powder blow-up marks the onforchoonate last of Mike. Since he
never does show up no more, an' a Mexican tendin' goats in the
vicin'ty informs us he sees him pinnin' a target on the r'ar elevation
of the powder house jest prior to the explosion, it's the common
feelin' that the blow-up's caused by one of Mike's bullets, an' that
Mike an' the powder reepos'tory takes flight simooltaneous. Only, as
already set fo'th, Peets claims that Mike knows what's comin'. Mebby
Peets is right, an' mebby Mike that a-way commits sooicide. Whichever
it is, sooicide or accident, it's a mighty complete success; for the
only trace we're able to find of either Mike or the powder house is a
most elab'rate hole in the ground.

"'The same bein', as I holds, a most excellent feachure,' says Boggs,
who loathes foonerals. 'This yere powder house way of cashin' in meets
with my approval. It shore don't leave no reemains!'"

X

HOW TUTT SHOT TEXAS THOMPSON

"Which they starts the yarn in Red Dog that the shootin' that time
between Tutt an' Texas is born of sectional feelin', an' because
Texas is a southern gent, while Tutt comes from the No'th. Sech
explainations is absurd--as Doc Peets well says. Also, I'm yere to go
one word further an' state that, while it's like them Red Dogs, idle
an' mendacious as they freequent be, to go fosterin' sech fictions,
thar ain't a syllable of trooth tharin from soda to hock. The
flareup has its start in them two children, Annalinda Thompson an'
little Enright Peets, an' what sentiments of rivalry nacherally
seizes on Tutt an' Texas as parent an' uncle reespective."

"Still there must have been some degree of sectional feeling among
you," I said, more by way of stirring my old cattleman up than any
nobler purpose; "coming some of you from the South, and others from
the North, it would have been strange indeed had it been otherwise."

"Which it's shore strange, then. Them Wolfville pards of mine is one
an' all United States men. They ain't Southern men, nor No'thern men,
nor Eastern men, nor even Western men. Likewise, the improodent sport
who'd go trackin' 'round, ondertaikin' to designate 'em as sech, would
get toomultuous action, plenty soon and plenty of it.

"Why, take Texas himse'f: Thar's a fly-by-night party pesterin' 'round
camp for a space, who lets on he's from the same neck of woods as
Texas. This yere annoyin' fraud is a heap proud of it, too, an' makes
a speshulty of bein' caught