"Red Dog in a sperit of vain competition," observed my friend,
"starts a paper about the same time Colonel Sterett founds the
Coyote; an', son, for a while, them imprints has a lurid life! The
Red Dog paper don't last long though; it lacks them elements of
longevity which the Coyote possesses, an' it ain't runnin' many
weeks before it sort o' rots down all at once, an' the editor jumps
the game.
"It's ever been a subject of dissensions between Colonel Sterett an'
myse'f as to where impartial jestice should lay the blame of that
Red Dog paper's failure. Colonel Sterett charges it onto the editor;
but it's my beliefs, an' I'm j'ined tharin by Boggs an' Texas
Thompson, that no editor could flourish an' no paper survive in
surroundin's so plumb venomous an' p'isen as Red Dog. Moreover, I
holds that Colonel Sterett, onintentional no doubt, takes a
ja'ndiced view of that brother publisher. But I rides ahead of my
tale.
"Thar comes a day when Old Man Enright heads into the Red Light,
where we-all is discussin' of eepisodes, an' he packs a letter in
his hand.
"'Yere's a matter,' he says, 'of public concern, an' I asks for a
full expression of the camp for answer. Yere's a sharp by the name
of Colonel William Greene Sterett, who writes me as how he's
sufferin' to let go all holts in the States an' start a paper in
Wolfville. It shall be, he says, a progressif an' enlightened
journal, devoted to the moral, mental an' material upheaval of this
yere commoonity, an' he aims to learn our views. Do I hear any
remarks on this litteratoor's prop'sition?' "Tell him to come a-
runnin', Enright," says Jack Moore; "an' draw it strong. If thar's
one want which is slowly but shorely crowdin' Wolfville to the wall,
it's a dearth of literatoor; yere's our chance, an' we plays it
quick an high."
"I ain't so gala confident of all this," says Dan Boggs. "I'm sort
o' allowin' this hamlet's too feeble yet for a paper. Startin' a
paper in a small camp this a-way is like givin' a six-shooter to a
boy; most likely he shoots himse'f, or mebby busts the neighbor,
tharwith."
"Oh, I don't know,' says Doc Peets, who, I wants to say, is as
sudden a white man, mental, as I ever sees; "my notion is to bring
him along. The mere idee of a paper'll do a heap for the town."
"I'm entertainin' sentiments sim'lar,' says Enright; "an' I guess
I'll write this Colonel Sterett that we'll go him once if we lose.
I'm assisted to this concloosion by hearin', the last time I'm in
Tucson, that Red Dog, which is our rival, is out to start a paper,
in which event it behooves Wolfville to split even with 'em at the
least."
"That's whatever!" says Moore. "If we allows Red Dog to put it onto
us that a-way we might jest as well dissolve Wolfville as a camp,
an' reepair to the woods in a body."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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