At this epock Bill hears a yowl; glancin’ out of the winder, he counts a couple of hundred Injuns who’s proselytin’ about over on t’other side of the river. Bill don’t get up none; he jests looks annoyed on account of that yellin’ puttin’ him out in his book-keepin’.
As a bullet from them savages comes singin’ in the r’ar door an’ buries itse’f in a ham, Bill even gets incensed.
“Hiram,” he calls to his twelve-year old son, who’s down cellar drawin’ red-eye for a customer; “Hiram, you-all take pop’s rifle, raise the hindsight for three hundred yards, an’ reprove them hostiles. Aim low, Hiram, an’ if you fetches one, pop’ll give you a seegyar an’ let you smoke it yourse’f.”
Bill goes back to Virg Horne’s account, an’ Hiram after slammin’ away with Bill’s old Hawkins once or twice comes in an’ gets his seegyar.
No; Old Houston does wrong when he flings forth this yere ukase about movin’ the capitol. Austin, even if a gent does have to dodge a arrer or duck a bullet as he prosecootes his daily tasks, is as safe as a camp-meetin’.
When Old Houston makes the order, one of his Brazos pards reemonstrates with him.
“Which Austin will simply go into the air all spraddled out,” says this pard.
“If Austin sails up in the air an’ stays thar,” says Old Houston, “still you-all can gamble that this yere order goes.”
“You hears,” says another, “Elder Peters when he tells of how a Mexican named Mohammed commands the mountain to come to him? But the mountain calls his bluff; that promontory stands pat, an’ Mohammed has to go to the mountain.”
“My name’s Sam Houston an’ it ain’t Mo-hommed,” retorts Old Houston. “Moreover, Mohammed don’t have no written constitootion.”