"Bar none, Doc Peets is the bitterest gent, verbal, that ever makes a moccasin track in the South-west. An' while Huggins ain't pleased none, them strictures has to go. To take to pawin' 'round for turmoil with Peets would be encroachin' onto the ediotic. Even if he emerges alive from sech controversies--an' it's four to one he wouldn't; for Peets, who's allers framed up with a brace of derringers, is about as vivid an enterprise as Wolfville affords-- the Stranglers would convene with Old Man Enright in the cha'r, an' Huggins wouldn't last as long as a drink of whiskey. As it is, Huggins gulps his feelin's an' offers nothin' in return to Peets's remarks. "No; of course Doc Peets ain't that diffusive in his confidences as to go surgin' about tellin' this story to every gent he meets. It's ag'in roole for physicians that a-way to go draggin' their lariats 'round permiscus an' impartin' all they knows. You-all can see yourse'f that if physicians is that ingenuous, it would prodooce all sorts of troubles in the most onlooked-for places an' most onexpected forms. No; Peets wouldn't give way to conduct so onbecomin' a medicine man an' a sport. But rooles has their exceptions; an so Feets, in one of them moments of sympathy an' confidence, which two highly eddicated gents after the eighth drink is bound to feel for each other, relates to Colonel Sterett concernin' Huggins an' his perfidy with them Bird Cage checks. "This yere onbosomin' of himse'f to the Colonel ain't none discreet of Peets. The Colonel has many excellencies, but keepin' secrets ain't among 'em; none whatever. The Colonel is deevoid of talents for secrets, an' so the next day he prints this yere outrage onder a derisive headline touchin' Huggins' froogality. "Huggins don't grade over-high for nerve an' is a long way from bein' clean strain game; but he figgers, so I allers reckons, that the Colonel ain't no thunderbolt of war himse'f, so when he reads as to him an' Peets an' them treemors an' the whiskey checks, he starts in to drink an' discuss about his honor, an' gives it out he'll have revenge. "It's the barkeep at the Red Light posts Colonel Sterett as to them perils. A Mexican comes trackin' along into the Colonel's room in the second story--what he calls his 'sanctum'--with a note. It's from the barkeep an' reads like this: RED LIGHT SALOON. DEAR COLONEL:-- Huggins is in here tankin' up an' makin' war medicine. He's packin' two guns. He says he's going to plug you for that piece. I can keep him here an hour. Meanwhile, heel yourse'f. I'll have him so drunk by the time he leaves that he ought to be easy. Yours sincerely, BLACK JACK. P. S. Better send over to the Express Company for one of them shot- guns. Buckshot, that a-way, is a cinch; an' if you're a leetle nervous it don't make no difference. B. J.