“Meanwhile the angel kept urging Uncle Dave forward to salute the
throne. But he loitered along, meeting former hunting acquaintances,
and stopping with each for a social chat. When they finally neared the
throne, the patience of the angel was nearly exhausted; and as old Dave
looked up and saw Colonel Andrews occupying the throne, he rebelled and
refused to salute, when the angel wrathfully led him back to the gate
and kicked him out among his dogs.”
Jack Splann told a yarn about the friendship of a pet lamb and dog
which he owned when a boy. It was so unreasonable that he was
interrupted on nearly every assertion. Long before he had finished,
Sponsilier checked his narrative and informed him that if he insisted
on doling out fiction he must have some consideration for his
listeners, and at least tell it within reason. Splann stopped right
there and refused to conclude his story, though no one but myself
seemed to regret it. I had a true incident about a dog which I expected
to tell, but the audience had become too critical, and I kept quiet. As
it was evident that no more dog stories would be told, the conversation
was allowed to drift at will. The recent shooting on the North Platte
had been witnessed by nearly every one present, and was suggestive of
other scenes.
“I have always contended,” said Dorg Seay, “that the man who can
control his temper always shoots the truest. You take one of these
fellows that can smile and shoot at the same time—they are the boys
that I want to stand in with. But speaking of losing the temper, did
any of you ever see a woman real angry,—not merely cross, but the
tigress in her raging and thirsting to tear you limb from limb? I did
only once, but I have never forgotten the occasion. In supreme anger
the only superior to this woman I ever witnessed was Captain Cartwright
when he shot the slayer of his only son. He was as cool as a cucumber,
as his only shot proved, but years afterward when he told me of the
incident, he lost all control of himself, and fire flashed from his
eyes like from the muzzle of a six-shooter. ‘Dorg,’ said he,
unconsciously shaking me like a terrier does a rat, his blazing eyes
not a foot from my face, ‘Dorg, when I shot that cowardly —— — — ——, I
didn’t miss the centre of his forehead the width of my thumb nail.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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