"'Which, if I ain't,' says Enright, 'it's plenty safe as a play to let
your wisdom flow this a-way till the he-coon gets yere.'
"'If thar's anythin',' says the Red Dog man, 'I turns from sick, it's
voylence an' deevastation. But I hears sech complaints constant of
this yere camp of Wolfville, I takes my first idle day to ride over an'
line things up. Now yere I be, an' while I regrets it, I finds
you-alls is a lawless, onregenerate set, a heap sight worse than
roomer. I now takes the notion--for I sees no other trail--that by
next drink time I climbs into the saddle, throws my rope 'round this
den of sin, an' removes it from the map.'
"'Nacherally,' says Enright, some sarcastic, 'in makin' them schemes
you ain't lookin' for no trouble whatever with a band of tarrapins like
us.'
"'None whatever,' says the Red Dog man, mighty confident. 'In thirty
minutes I distributes this yere hamlet 'round in the landscape same as
them Greasers; which feat becomin' hist'ry, I then canters back to Red
Dog.'
"'Well,' says Enright, 'it's plenty p'lite to let us know what's comin'
this a-way.'
"'Oh! I ain't tellin' you none,' says the Red Dog man, 'I simply lets
fly this hint, so any of you-alls as has got bric-a-brac he values
speshul, he takes warnin' some an' packs it off all safe.'
"It's about then when Cherokee Hall, who's lookin' on, shoulders in
between Enright an' the Red Dog man, mighty positive. Cherokee is a
heap sot in his idees, an' I sees right off he's took a notion ag'in
the Red Dog man.
"'As you've got a lot of work cut out,' says Cherokee, eyein' the Red
Dog man malignant, 's'pose we tips the canteen ag'in.'
"'I shorely goes you,' says the Red Dog man. 'I drinks with friend,
an' I drinks with foe; with the pard of my bosom an' the shudderin'
victim of my wrath all sim'lar.'
"Cherokee turns out a big drink an' stands a-holdin' of it in his hand.
I wants to say right yere, this Cherokee's plenty guileful.
"'You was namin',' says Cherokee, 'some public improvements you aims to
make; sech as movin' this yere camp 'round some, I believes?'
"'That's whatever,' says the Red Dog man, 'an' the holycaust I
'nitiates is due to start in fifteen minutes.'
"'I've been figgerin' on you,' says Cherokee, 'an' I gives you the
result in strict confidence without holdin' out a kyard. When you-all
talks of tearin' up Wolfville, you're a liar an' a hoss-thief, an' you
ain't goin' to tear up nothin'.'
"'What's this I hears!' yells the frenzied Red Dog man, reachin' for
his gun.
"But he never gets it, for the same second Cherokee spills the glass of
whiskey straight in his eyes, an' the next he's anguished an' blind as
a mole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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