d
lazy way o' takin' his own time fer ever'thing. You jest _couldn't crowd
Wes_ er git him rattled anyway.--Jest 'peared to have one fixed
principle, and that wuz to take plenty o' time, and never make no move
'ithout a-ciphern'n' ahead on the prob'ble consequences, don't you
understand! "Be shore you're right," Wes 'ud say, a-lettin' up fer a
second on that low and sorry-like little wind-through-the-keyhole
whistle o' his, and a-nosin' out a place whur he could swap one man fer
two.--"Be shore you're right"--and somep'n' after this style wuz Wes's
way: "Be shore you're right"--(whistling a long, lonesome bar of
"Barbara Allen")--"and then"--(another long, retarded bar)--"go
ahead!"--and by the time the feller 'ud git through with his whistlin',
and a-stoppin' and a-startin' in ag'in, he'd be about three men ahead
to your one. And then he'd jest go on with his whistlin' 'sef nothin'
had happened, and mebby you a-jest a-rearin' and a-callin' him all the
mean, outlandish, ornry names 'at you could lay tongue to.

But Wes's good nature, I reckon, was the thing 'at he'ped him out as
much as any other p'ints the feller had. And _Wes 'ud allus win, in the
long run_!--I don't keer _who_ played ag'inst him! It was on'y a
question o' time with Wes o' waxin' it to the best of 'em. Lots o'
players has _tackled_ Wes, and right at the _start_ 'ud mebby give him
trouble,--but in the _long run_, now mind ye--_in the long run_, no
mortal man, I reckon, had any business o' rubbin' knees with Wes Cotterl
under no airthly checker-board in all this vale o' tears!

I mind onc't th' come along a high-toned feller from in around
In'i'nop'lus somers.--Wuz a _lawyer_, er some _p'fessional_ kind o' man.
Had a big yaller, luther-kivvered book under his arm, and a bunch o'
these-'ere big en_vel_op's and a lot o' suppeenies stickin' out o' his
breastpocket. Mighty slick-lookin' feller he wuz; wore a stovepipe hat,
sorto' set 'way back on his head--so's to show off his Giner'l Jackson
forr'ed, don't you know! Well-sir, this feller struck the place, on some
business er other, and then missed the hack 'at _ort_ to 'a' tuk him out
o' here sooner'n it _did_ take him out!--And whilse he wuz a-loafin'
round, sorto' lonesome--like a feller allus _is_ in a strange place, you
know--he kindo' drapped in on our crowd at the Shoe-Shop, ostenchably to
git a boot-strop stitched on, but _I_ knowed, the minute he set foot in
the door, 'at _that_ feller wanted _com