"An', son, while said riotous prophecies of Boggs don't impress me a little bit, I'm bound to admit that the second night followin' the heegira of this yere Ryder, an' his advent that a-way into Red Dog, a outcast from the Floridas, who goes locoed as the frootes of a week of Red Dog gayety, sets fire to the sityooation while shootin' out the dance-hall lamps, an' burns up half Red Dog, with the dance hall an' the only two s'loons in the outfit; tharby incloodin' every drop of whiskey in the holycaust. It was awful! Which, of coarse, we comes to the rescoo. Red Dog's our foe; but thar be c'lamities, son, which leaves no room in the hooman heart for anythin' but pity. An' this is one. Wolfville rolls out the needed nose-paint for Red Dog, desolated as I says, an' holds the fraternal glass to the Red Dog lips till its freighters brings relief from Tucson. "All the same, while as I assures you thar's nothin' sooperstitious about me, I can't he'p, when Red Dog burns that a-way, but think of them bluffs of Boggs about this yere old Ryder party bein' a hoodoo. Shore! it confirms Boggs in them weaknesses. An' he even waxes puffed up an' puts on dog about it; an' if ever thar's a dispoote about one of his omens--an' thar's a lot from time to time, because Boggs is plumb reedic'lous as to 'em--he ups an' staggers the camp by demandin', 'Don't I call the turn that time when Ryder goes retreatin' over to Red Dog? If I don't, I'll turn Chink an' open a laundry.' "Speakin' of omens, of course thar be some, as I tell you yeretofore in that Wolfville book you've done printed, so common an' practical every gent must yield to'em. Thar's places where mere sooper. stition gets up from the table, an' mule-sense takes its seat. If I meets a gent evolvin' outcries of glee, an' walkin' on both sides of the street, an' most likely emptyin' a Colt's pistol at the firmament, an' all without obv'ous cause, I dedooces the presence in that gent's interior of a lib'ral freight of nose-paint. If, as I'm proceedin' about my destinies, I hears the voice of a gun, I argues the existence of a weepon in my vicinity. If the lead tharfrom cuts my saddle-horn, or creases my pony, or plugs a double hole in my sombrero, or some sech little play, I dies to a theery that the knight errant who's back of the racket means me, onlimbers my field piece, an' enters into the sperit of the eepisode. Which I gives you this in almost them very words before. Still, signs an' omens in what Doc Peets would term their 'occultisms,' I passes up. I wouldn't live in them apprehensions that beleaguers Boggs for a full herd of three-year-olds. "Which I'll never forget them eloocidations beright onfolds on Boggs one evenin' about the mournin' an' the howlin' of some hound-dogs that's been sendin' thrills through Boggs. It's when some outfit of mountebanks is givin' a show called 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' over to Huggins' Bird Cage Op'ry House, an'