"And," says that college feller from the Lazy X, "go fer the cheek allus--the best eatin'." (He was smart, all right.) "Not a Chinaman's cheek--too tough," says the sheriff. Boston begun to kinda talk to hisself. "Horrible!" he says. "Shy Locks, by Heaven!" Then to me again, speakin' low and pointin' at the sheriff, "Mister Lloyd, what kind of a fambly did that man come from?" "Don't know a hull lot about him," I answers, "but his mother was a squaw, and his father was found on a doorstep." "A _squaw,_" he says. "That accounts fer it." And he begun to watch the sheriff clost. "Gents, what you want fer you' supper?" ast the Arnaz boy, comin' our _di_rection. "I feel awful caved in," answers Buckshot. "I'll take a dozen aigs." "How'll you have 'em?" "Boil 'em hard, so's I can hole 'em in my fingers. And say, cool 'em off 'fore you dish 'em up. I got blistered _bad_ the last time I et aigs." "Rawson, what'll _you_ have?" Rawson, he kinda cocked one ear. "Wal," he says, easy like, "give me rattlesnake on toast." Nobody cheeped fer a minute, 'cause the boys was stumped fer somethin' to go on with. But just as I was gittin' nervous that the conversation was peterin' out, Boston speaks up. "Rattlesnake?" he says; "did he say _rattlesnake?_" Like a shot, Rawson turned towards him, wrinklin' his forrid and wigglin' his moustache awful fierce. "_That's_ what I said," he answers, voice plumb down to his number 'levens. It give me my show. I drug Boston away. "Gee!" I says, "on _this_ side of the Mississippi, you got to be _keerful_ how you go shoot off you' mouth! And when you _re_mark on folks's eatin', you don't want t' look tickled." Wal, that was all the colour he got till night, when I had somethin' more _pre_pared. We took up a collection fer winda-glass, and Chub Flannagan, who can roll a gun the _prettiest_ you ever seen, walked up and down nigh Boston's stoppin'-place, invitin' the fellers t' come out and "git et up," makin' one 'r two of us dance the heel-and-toe when we showed ourselves, and shootin' up the town gen'ally. Then, fer a week, nothin' happened. It was just about then that Rose got another letter from Macie. And it seemed t' me that the little gal 'd changed her tune some. She said Noo York took a _turrible_ lot of money--clothes, and grub, and so forth and so on. Said they was so blamed little oxygen in the town that a lamp wouldn't burn, and they'd got to use 'lectricity. And--that was all fer _this_ time, 'cause she had t' write her paw. "I s'pose," I says to Rose, "that it'd be wastin' my breath t' ast----" "Yas, Cupid," she answers, "but it'll be O. K. when she sees you." "_I_ reckon," I says hopeful. And I hunted up my new boss. He didn't give me such a lot t' do them days--except t' show up at the feed-shop three times reg'lar. That struck me as kinda funny--'cause he was as flush as a' Osage chief.