"'Which I shore deespises to keep you boys 295 waitin',' he'd say, with a cacklin', aggravatin' laugh; 'but the way I feels it'd be prematoore to go greasin' up the hubs of that hearse.'
"Sech taunts he flings forth constant, ontil he comes mighty near drivin' Boggs frantic.
"'It seems,' says Boggs, 'like simply livin' ain't good enough for that old hoss thief. To be wholly happy he's obleeged to make his stay on earth a source of mis'ry to other folks. Which he ought to've been in his tomb ten years ago. Every day he draws his breath is so much velvet; an', instead of bein' thankful, all he thinks of is makin' mean reemarks an' sayin' bitin' things. He'll keep on till some over-provoked sport bends a six-shooter on his insultin' head.'
"Weeks of waitin' goes by. Armstrong's old badger of a uncle hangs on, an' no outside corpse falls in, Arizona, as you doubtless savvys, bein' scand'lously healthy that a-way. So far, too, from any el'g'ble subject arrivin' in the usual way, the town never experiences sech a period of rippleless an' onruffled peace. As showin', too, how far the public is willin' to go to he'p along the play, I need only mention that on two o'casions Boggs leaves out his 296 best pony all night, himse'f sprawled in behind a mesquite bush with his winchester, hopin' some Mexican'll prove weak enough to want it. All is in vain, however. Thar we be, framed up to give a fooneral from which Cochise County could date time, an' nothin' in the line of raw mater'al wharwith to pull it off. Which I never sees the gen'ral feelin' more exasperated. It's as though in a sperit of sarcasm our destinies is mockin' us.
"The Turner person, in the face of this yere disheartenin' idleness, takes refooge in a trottin' hoss, which form of equine is as strange to us as camelopards. Shore, we has our runnin' races, pony ag'inst pony, a quarter of a mile dash; but that's as far as we goes.
"The Turner person says that for himse'f he prefers trottin' races, an' after seein' him ride once I shore quits marvellin' at that pref'rence. You could no more keep him on a pony than you could keep him on a red-hot stove. We ties a roll of blankets across the horn of the saddle, an' organizes him with buckin' straps besides, an' in the face of all them safegyards he rolls off that hoss same as you'd expect some chambermaid to do.
"Accordin' to the Turner person, trottin' races is the sport of kings, an' actin' on this feelin' he sends back East for a hoss. He drives it in one evenin' behind the stage, an' we-all goes over to the corral to size it up. It's consid'rable of a hoss, too, standin' three hands higher than the tallest of our ponies. Also, it has a ewe neck an' lib'ral legs. It's name is 'Henry of Navarre,' but we sees at once that sech'll never do, an' re-christens him 'Boomerang Bob.'
"When this hoss arrives Boggs gets excited, an' him an' the Turner person lays out a track all around town like a belt. Boggs allows it's a mile long, or near enough, an' after a passel of Greasers cl'ars away the cactus an' mesquite an' Spanish bayonet, the Turner person hooks up Boomerang to a mountain wagon, an' sends him 'round an' 'round an' 'round at a pace that'd make your eyes stick out so far you could see your sins. Old Boomerang is shore some eevanescent! When that Turner person shakes the reins an' yells 'Skoot!' you could hear him whizz. On sech occasions he's nothin' short of a four-laigged meteor, an' looks forty feet long passin' a given p'int.