"'I should confess as much!' admits Peets, mighty emphatic. 'Speakin' from commoonal standp'ints, it'd mark us as too dead to skin.'
"The sityooation takes shape in a resolootion to hold a spellin' school ourselves, an' invite Red Dog to stand in. Sech steps is calc'lated, we allows, to head off orig'nal action on the Red Dog part.
"'Let's challenge 'em to spell ag'in us,' says Texas. 'That's shore to stop 'em from holdin' spellin' schools of their own, an' it'll be as simple as tailin' steers to down 'em. I'll gamble 326 what odds you please that, when it comes to edyoocation that a-way, we can make them Red Dogs look like a bunch of Digger Injuns.'
"'Don't move your stack to the center on that proposition, Texas,' observes Tutt, 'ontil you thoroughly skins your hand. Edyoocation ain't wholly dead in Red Dog. Thar's a shorthorn over thar, him who keeps books for the Wells-Fargo folks, who's edyoocated to a razor edge.'
"'Him?' says Boggs. 'That murderer ain't no book sharp speshul. Put him ag'in the Doc or Col'nel Sterett, an' he wouldn't last as long as a quart of whiskey at a barn raisin'. Which he's a heap sight better fitted to shine in a gun-play than a spellin' contest.'
"'But Col'nel Sterett ain't here none,' Tutt urges, 'havin' gone back to see his folks; an' as for the Doc, he'll be needed to put out the words. Some competent gent's got to go back of the box an' deal the game, an' the Doc's the only stoodent in town who answers that deescription.'
"Armstrong, who's happened along lookin' for his little old forty drops, lets on he knows 327 a party down in El Paso who can spell any word that ever lurks between the covers of a dictionary.
"'That's straight,' Armstrong declar's. 'This yere El Paso savant can spell anything. Which I've seen him spell the hind shoes off a shavetail mule for the drinks. He's the boss speller of the Rio Grande, so much so they calls him "Spellin' Book Ben."'
"'Let's rope him up,' Peets suggests. 'Which them Red Dogs never will quit talkin' if we-all lets 'em down us.'
"'Do you-all reckon,' asks Enright, appealin' to Armstrong, 'you could lure that El Paso expert up yere to partic'pate in this battle of the intellects?'