“Which if I was you-all,” says Johnny Cook of the LIT outfit, “I’d shore sally forth an’ buy nose-paint with that treasure while a peso remained.” But Cold-sober turns down these divers proposals an’ allows he’ll pack said roll in his pocket a whole lot, which he accordin’ does. Cold-sober hangs ’round Tascosa for mighty near a week, surrenderin’ all thought of gettin’ to the Lee-Scott ranch, feelin’ that he’s now too rich to punch cattle. Doorin’ this season of idleness art’ease, Cold-sober bunks in with a jimcrow English doctor who’s got a ’doby in Tascosa an’ who calls himse’f Chepp. He’s a decent form of maverick, however, this yere Chepp, an’ him an’ Cold-sober becomes as thick as thieves. Cold-sober’s stay with Chepp is brief as I states; in a week he gets restless ag’in for work; whereupon he hooks up with Roberson, an’ goes p’intin’ south across the Canadian on a L I T hoss to hold down one of that brand’s sign-camps in Mitchell’s canyon. It’s only twenty miles, an’ lie’s thar in half a day--him an’ Wat Peacock who’s to be his mate. An’ Cold-sober packs with him that fortune of ninety-five hundred. The two black-laigs who’s been depleted that away still hankers about Tascosa; but as mighty likely they don’t own the riches to take ’em out o’ town, not much is thought. Nor does it ruffle the feathers of commoonal suspicion when the two disappears a few days after Cold-sober goes ridin’ away to assoome them LIT reesponsibilities in Mitchell’s canyon. The public is too busy to bother itse’f about ’em. It comes out later, however, that the goin’ of Cold-sober has everything to do with the exodus of them hold-ups, an’ that they’ve been layin’ about since they loses their roll on a chance of get-tin’ it back. When Cold-sober p’ints south for Mitchell’s that time, it’s as good as these outlaws asks. They figgers on trailin’ him to Mitchell’s an’ hidin’ out ontil some hour when Peacock’s off foolin’ about the range; when they argues Cold-sober would be plumb easy, an’ they’ll kill an’ skelp him an’ clean him up for his money, an’ ride away. “In fact,” explains the one Cold-sober an’ Peacock finds alive, “it’s our idee that the killin’ an’ skelpin’ an’ pillagin’ of Cold-sober would get layed to Peacock, which would mean safety for us an’ at the same time be a jest on Peacock that would be plumb hard to beat.” That was the plan of these outlaws; an’ the cause of its failure is the followin’ episode, to wit: It looks like this Doc Chepp is locoed to collect wild anamiles that a-way.