Well, will you believe it? When Hill give that Hen his chance she begun to cry over it! She knew it wouldn't do to cry hard--seeing what a mess it would make with her color when the tears got running--and so she pulled herself up quick and mopped her eyes dry with her pocket-handkerchief. And then she let out with all four legs at once, like a Colorado mule, and everlastingly gave it to all hands! It was just like the Hen, being so good-hearted, and thinking so much of Hill, to fire up like that about Santa Fé's pool on when he'd get his medicine; and all the boys knowed that beside the address she was making to the whole congregation Santa Fé was going to get another, and a worse one, when she had him off where she could play out to him a lone hand. But the boys didn't mind the jawing she give 'em--except they was a little ashamed, knowing putting such a rig on Hill was a mean thing to do--and I guess the whole business would have ended right there (only for the dressing-down Santa Fé was to get later) if Hart's nephew hadn't taken it into his head to chip in--being drunker'n usual, and a fool anyway--and so started what turned out to be a fresh game. I do suppose Hart's nephew was about the meanest ever got born. Bill Hart was a good enough fellow himself, and how he ever come to have such a God-forsaken chump for a nephew was more'n anybody could tell. Things must have been powerful bad, I reckon, on his mother's side. He was one of the blowing kind, with nothing behind his blow; and his feet was that tender they wasn't fit to walk on anything harder'n fresh mush. The boys all the time was putting up rigs on him; and he'd go around talking so big about what he meant to do to get even with 'em you'd think he was going to clean out the whole town. But he took mighty good care to do his tall talking promiscuous: after making the mistake of trying it once on a little man he thought he could manage--a real peaceable little feller that looked like he wouldn't stand up to a kitten--and getting his nose and his mouth and his eyes all mashed into one. The little man apologized to the rest for doing it that way, saying he'd a-been ashamed of himself all the rest of his life if he'd gone for a thing like that with his gun.