"'At this I explains that I ain't got my instrooments with me, havin' left both rifle an' bowie in the dugout when I paddles over to the dance.
"'Jenks makes a insultin' gesture, an' reetorts, "Don't crawl, Dick Stallins. Borry old Bender's nine-inch bootcher, an' come with me."
"'To appease him I says I will, an' that I'll j'ine him at the before named slaughter-ground in the flicker of a lamb's tail. Jenks stalks off plumb satisfied, while I searches out Ben Hazlett, an' whispers that Jenks is askin' for him some urgent, an' has gone down the trace towards the foot of the hollow to look 50 him up. Nacherally, my diplom'cy in this yere behalf sends Ben cavortin' after Jenks; an' this relieves me a heap, knowin' that all Jenks wants is a fight, an' Ben'll do him jest as well as me.
"'Which them was shorely happy days!' he continyoos, settin' down the bottle wharwith he's been encouragin' his faculties. 'Troo, every gent has to sleep with his head in a iron kettle for fear of Injuns, an' a hundred dollars is bigger'n a cord of wood, but life is plenty blissful jest the same.'
"'Was you afraid of this yere Jenks?' asks Boggs.
"'No more'n if he's a streak of lightnin'. Only, I've got on a new huntin' shirt, made of green blanket cloth, an' I ain't none strenuous about havin' that gyarment all slashed up.
"'To proceed: After I dispatches Ben on the heels of Jenks that a-way it occurs to me that mebby I'm sort o' tired with the labors of the evenin', an' I'll find my dugout, ferry myse'f over to my own proper wickyup, an' hit the hay for a snooze. I'm some hurried to the concloosion by the way in which eevents begins to accumyoolate in my immedyit vicin'ty. Bill 51 Wheeler announces without a word of warnin' that he's a flyin' alligator, besides advancin' the theery that Gene Hemphill is about as deeserv'dly pop'lar as a abolitionist in South Caroliny. I suspects that this attitoode of mind on Bill's part is likely to provoke discussion, which suspicion is confirmed when Gene knocks Bill down, an' boots him into the dooryard. Once in the open, after a clout or two, Gene an' Bill goes to a clinch an' the fightin' begins.
"'It ain't no time when the circumf'rence of trouble spreads. Bud Ingalls makes a pass at me pers'nal, an' by way of reeprisal I smashes a stewpan on him. Bud's head goes through the bottom, like the clown through them paper hoops in a cirkus, the stewpan fittin' down 'round his neck same as one of them Elizbethan ruffs. The stewpan ockyoopies so much of Bud's attention that I gets impatient, an' so, tellin' him I ain't got no time to wait, I leaves him strugglin' with that yootensil, an' strolls off down to the Hawgthief whistlin' "Sandy Land."
"'It's dark as the inside of a cow, an' somehow I misses the dugout; but bein' stubborn, 52 an' plumb sot about gettin' home, I wades in an' begins to swim. The old Hawgthief is bank full, but I'd have made t'other side all right if it ain't that, as I swims out from onder the overhangin' branch of a tree, somethin' drops into the water behind me, an' comes snarlin' an' splashin' an' spittin' along in pursoote. I don't pay much heed at the jump, but when it claws off my nigh moccasin, leavin' a inch-deep gash in my heel, I glances back an' perceives by the two green eyes that I've become an object of comsoomin' int'rest to a pa'nter, or what you-all out yere calls a mountain lion, an' we-uns back in Tennessee a catamount.'
"'But a panther won't swim,' reemonstrates Tutt.