on, when he ain't crowdin' up to the wheel to give orders to them
Senegambians about how to hold or when to feed her, he's menacin' at
me. That's why I'm three hours late. At rough places it looks like
thar ain't no name mean enough for him to call me; an' once, when
the front wheel jolts into a chuckhole an' Annalinda sets up a
squall, he pulls a gun an' threatens in the most frenzied way to shoot
me up. "You be more careful," he roars, "or I'll blow you plumb off
your perch! Childhood, that a-way, is a fragile flower; an' if you
figgers I'll set yere an', in the tender instance of my own pers'nal
niece, see some booze-besotted drunkard break that flower short off
at the stalk, I'll fool you up a whole lot." An' do you-all know,'
Monte concloodes, almost with a sob, 'he never does let down the
hammer of his .45 ag'in for most a mile.'

"Annalinda is plumb pretty. The whole camp goes her way like a
landslide. Tucson Jennie approves of her--with reeservations, of
course, in favor of little Enright Peets; Missis Rucker finds time to
snatch a few moments, between feedin' us an' bossin' Rucker, to go see
her every day; while, as for Nell, she's in an' out of Texas' 'doby
mornin', noon an' night to sech extents that half the time Cherokee
ain't got no lookout, an' when he has it's Boggs.

[Illustration: "HIM AN' ANNALINDA SHORE DO CONSTITOOTE A PICTURE. 'THAR'S
A PA'R TO DRAW TO,' SAYS NELL TO TEXAS, HER EYES LIKE BROWN DIAMONDS."
p. 281.]

"Nell brings over little Enright Peets, an' thar's no backin' away
from it him an' Annalinda shore do constitoote a picture.

"'Thar's a pa'r to draw to!' says Nell to Texas, her eyes like
diamonds.

"Bein' romantic, like all girls, an' full of fancies that a-way, Nell
indulges in playful specyoolations about Annalinda an' little Enright
Peets gettin' married later on. Not that she intends anything,
although Texas takes it plenty serious, which shows how his egotism is
already workin' overtime.

"When Monte puts up them groans about how Texas is changed, we-all
lays it to the complainin' habit which, on account of whiskey mebby,
has got to be second nacher with him. He's always kickin' about
something; an' so, nacherally, when he onbosoms himse'f of that howl
about Texas, we don't pay no speshul heed. It ain't three days,
however, before it begins to break on us that for once Monte's right.
Texas has certainly changed. Thar's a sooperior manner, what you'd
call a loftiness, about