This is of a day prior to Dave Tutt's taking a wife, and a year before the nuptials of Benson Annie, as planned and executed by Old Man Enright, with one, French.
Wolfville is dissatisfied; what one might call peevish. A man has been picked up shot to death, no one can tell by whom; no one has hung for it. Any one familiar with the Western spirit and the Western way would note the discontent by merely walking through the single, sun-burned street. When two citizens of the place make casual meeting in store or causeway, they confine their salutations to gruff “how'd!” and pass on. Men are even seen to drink alone in a sullen, morbid way.
Clearly something is wrong with Wolfville. The popular discontent is so sufficiently pronounced as to merit the notice of leading citizens. Therefore it is no marvel that when Old Man Enright, who, by right of years—and with a brain as clear and as bright as a day in June—is the head man of the hamlet, meets Doc Peets at the bar of the Red Light, the discussion falls on affairs of public concern.
“Whatever do you reckon is the matter with this camp, Enright?” asks Doc Peets, as they tip their liquor into their throats without missing a drop.
Doc Peets is the medical practitioner of Wolfville, but his grammar, like that of many another man, has lost ground before his environment.
“Can't tell!” replied Enright, with a mien dubious yet thoughtful. “Looks like the whole outfit is somehow on a dead kyard. Mebby it's that Denver party gettin' downed last week an' no one lynched. Some folks says the Stranglers oughter have swung that Greaser.”
“Well!” retorts Doc Peets, “you as chief of the Stranglers, an' I as a member in full standin', knows thar's no more evidence ag'in that Mexican than ag'in my pinto hoss.”
“Of course, I knows that too!” replies Enright, “but still I sorter thinks general sentiment lotted on a hangin'. You know, Doc, it ain't so important from a public stand that you stretches the right gent, as that you stretches somebody when it's looked for. Nacherally it would have been mighty mortifyin' to the Mexican who's swung off at the loop-end of the lariat for a killin' he ain't in on; but still I holds the belief it would have calmed the sperit of the camp. However, I may be 'way off to one side on that; it's jest my view. Set up the nosepaint ag'in, barkeep!”
While Doc Peets is slowly freighting his glass with a fair allowance, he is deep in meditation.
“I've an idee, Enright,” says Doc Peets at last. “The thing for us to do is to give the public some new direction of thought that'll hold 'em quiet. The games is all dead at this hour, an' the boys ain't doin' nothin'; s'pose we makes a round-up to consider my scheme. The mere exercise will soothe 'em.”