“A little above our location thar wur a bend in the stream which a kind a turned the drift tother eend up, and planted them about the spot between our cabins--. snags and sawyers, jest thar, wur dreadful plenty, and it took mity nice padlin' to git across without tiltin'; howsever, I slid atween 'em, sarpentine fashion, and got over clar as a pet coon. Thar wur considerable folks at Alic's, fur some of the families in them diggins had about twenty in number, and the gals among 'em warn't any on your pigeon creaturs, that a fellar dassent tech fur fear of spilin' 'em, but raal scrougers--any on 'em over fourteen could lick a _bar_, easy. My decided opinion jest now is, that thur never was a grittyer crowd congregated before on that stream, and sich other dancin' and drinkin' and eatin' bar steaks, and corn dodger, and huggin' the gals, don't happen bu: once in a fellar's lifetime, and scarcely that often.. Old Alic had a darter Molly, that war the most enticin', gizzard-ticklin', heart-distressin' feline creatur that ever made a fellar git owdacious, and I seed Tom Sellers cavortin' round her like a young buffalo--he was puttin' in the biggest kind a licks in the way of courtin', and between her eyes and the sweetened whiskey he'd drank, you'd a thought the fellar would a bursted. Jest to make matters lively, I headed up alongside of Molly, and shyed a few soft things at her, sech as askin' how she liked bar steaks cooked, and if Jim Tarrant warn't equal in the elbow to a mad _panter's_ tail, when he war fiddlin' that last reel, and sech amusin' light conversation. Well, boys, Tom started swellin' instanter. He tried to draw her attention from me; but I got talkin' about some new improvements I war contemplatin' about my cabin, and the cow I expected up from St. Louis, 'sides lonely feelins I'd bin havin' lately, and Tom couldn't git in a show of talk, edgeways. Didn't he git mad?--wur you ever near enough to a panter when his har riz with wrath? Well, ef you have, you can create some idea of Tom's state of mind, and how electricity, from liquor and love, run out to the ends of his head kiverin'. It wur easy to see he wur a gittin' dangerous, so I slid off and left him alone with the gal. Arter I got a talkin' to another one of the settlers' young women, Molly kept lookin' at me, and every now and then sayin' somethin' pleasin' across to me, while she warn't payin' any attention to Tom at all. He spread himself into a stiff bow and left her; then movin' across the floor like a wounded deer, he steadied himself on the back of my seat, and lookin' me in the face, says: “'Mister Elkhorn, I shud be strenuously obleeged to you ef you'll step down thar with me by the old per-simmen tree.'