"Chucks! It makes me tired. Is they men or wax figgers? An' this here book-sharp allows they're first-class broncho-twisters. But if they is low-down skunks, the wimen bar this here put-upon Lady Beatrice is shore rattlesnakes from away back, they're that venomous; an' they fires out words at this here Lord Edward's wife as'd make a jack-rabbit curl his tail, which same words carves out wounds in the pore female like mushroom bullets. I'm a single-footer myself, an' ain't cut the tracks o' many wimen bar squaws; nor yet want to, onless this here book-sharp's brand o' female is a fake, which I shore reckon it is." "Women is mighty various," drawled the cowpuncher meditatively. "Some is sweet as molasses, some's all venegar. One kind'll stampede at the drop of a hat, another'll get balky an' jest set thar. No, you can't play no system on women--the deal's a sight too blotched." "Then you allows this here book-sharp shows savvy in his idees?" "Has these here rattlesnake females you discourses on many rings on their horns?" "Wall, I reckon their lustre is some faded, if that's a high kyard in the deal." "Which it shore enough is, for it's this way. When we-alls starts along this mortal trail we're like colts friskin' about, allowin' it's a case o' jam an' doughnuts cl'ar through. We shore sooner or later butts into trouble, gets bogged, and is yanked out, an' goes on gettin' bogged an' bein' yanked out till it gets to be a habit. But wi' wimen it's different. Gettin' bogged that-a-way frets 'em, till they're feelin' as ugly an' mean as Government pack-mules, an' they jest hankers to shoot off their bazoo till they has some one howlin'; an' the more rings they has on their horns the more they frets an' sets in to pull the props out from under the fresher fillies an' side-track them into the bog of disrepute." Jack listened to this speech with half-shut eyes, and then half muttered to himself: "Men are a queer kind of beasts and women a queer kind of angels." "I allow Broncho piles it on too thick," declared old Ben stubbornly, not noticing Jack's remark. "Bedad!" chimed in Paddy, roused from his book by the miner's deep voice, "but my old woman's after bein' 'the pole o' me tent,' as they say in the Seharey. Her spuds'd make the mouth o' the divil wather sufeecient to put out old Mother Nick's galley-fire." "Lawd, you surprise me, Pat!" exclaimed the cockney, rolling over on his back and rubbing his eyes. "A bloomin' Don Juan like you spliced? W'y, you're a disgryce." "Be aisy, be aisy, an' don't call y'r brither names. What's a Don Juan, any way?" "A Don Juan is er sort er----" and Hollins broke off and scratched his head for want of the proper word. "I'll be after Don Juaning you with a black eye the minit before next," burst out Paddy fiercely, the suspicion breaking into his brain that he was being insulted.