"'Why, yes,' Jack replies, squintin' his left eye a heap critical; 'to be shore it flatters you some, but then them artists gen'rally does.'
"'Jack, if I'm that feeble as to go believin' what you says, I'd borry a shotgun from the express company and blow off the top of my head. That ain't the portrait of no hooman bein"––an' Monte raises a dispa'rin' hand at the picture; 'it's a croode preesentation of some onnacheral cross between a coyote and a cowskin trunk.'
"Cherokee gets up from behind his lay-out, an' strolls over so's to get a line on the picture. He takes a long an' disparagin' survey.
"'It ain't that I'm incitin' you to voylence, Monte,' he remarks final, 'but if you owes a dooty to s'ciety, don't forget that you owes also a dooty to yourse'f. You'll be lackin' in se'f-respect if you don't give Sam Enright two weeks to take that outrage down, an' if it ain't removed by then you'll bust it.'
"Black Jack is ag'in the picture, too.
"'Not,' he says, 'that I wants to put the smother on it entire; only I figger it'd look better in the post office, folks not makin' it so much of a hangout. Regyarded commercial, 238 it's a setback to the Red Light. Some gent comes trackin' up intent on drinks, an' feelin' gala. After one glance at Monte up thar it's all off. That reveller's changed his mind, an' staggers out into the open ag'in without a word. The joint is daily knocked for about the price of a stack of bloos, as the direct result of that work of art. Which I'd as soon have a gila monster in the winder.'
"Mike ain't present none when all this yere flattery is flyin'. If he was thar in person nothin' would have been said. Whoever'd be that hardened as to go harrowin' up the sens'tive soul of a artist, even if his work don't grade as corn-fed?
"Some later tribyoote to his talents, however, reaches the y'ears of Mike. On the back of Black Jack's protests the Lightnin' Bug, who's come over from Red Dog for a little visit, drifts in. When he sees Monte's portrait his eyes lights up like a honka-tonk on Saturday night.
"'Rattlesnakes an' stingin' lizards!' he cries; 'which I'm a Mexican if you-all ain't gone an' got him painted! However do you-all manage? I remembers when we captures him it's 239 the last spring round-up but one. Two weeks goes by before ever we gets him so he'll w'ar clothes! An' even then we-all has to blindfold him an' back him in!'