"Which Boggs, who, as I says, is allers herdin' ghosts, is
sooperstitious about old Ryder. That's straight; Boggs won't put
down a bet while this Ryder person's in sight. I've beheld Boggs,
jest as he's got his chips placed, look up an' c'llect a glimpse of
them fiddle-feachers of Ryder.
"'Whoop!' says Boggs to Cherokee, who would be behind the box, an'
spreadin' his hands in reemonstrance; 'nothin' goes!' An' then Boggs
would glare at this Ryder party ontil he'd fade from the room.
"He's timid of Boggs, too, this yere Ryder is; an' as much as ever
it's this horror of Boggs which prevails on him to shift his
blankets to Red Dog---the same bein' a low-down plaza inhabited by
drunkards an' Mexicans, in proportions about a even break of each,
an' which assoomes in its delirium treecnors way to be a rival of
Wolfville.
"'Which I'm a public benefactor,' says Boggs, when he's informed
that he's done froze this Ryder out of camp, 'an' if you sports
a'preciates me at my troo valyoo, you-all would proffer me some sech
memento inebby as a silver tea-set. Me makin' this Ryder vamos is
the greatest public improvement Wolfville's experienced since the
lynchin' of Far Creek Stanton. You-all ain't s'fficiently on the
quee vee, as they says in French, to be aware of the m'lignant
atmospheres of this yere Ryder. He'd hoodoo a hill, or a pine-tree,
Ryder would, let alone anythin' as onstable as my methods of buckin'
faro-bank. Gone to Red Dog, has he? Bueno! He leaves us an' attaches
himse'f to our enemies. I'll bet a pinto hoss that somethin' happens
to them Red Dog tarrapins inside of a week.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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