“Deadwood Maggie,” observed that excellent spirit, as he replaced his glass on the Four Flush bar and turned to an individual who had been guilty of words derogatory to the lady in question; “Dead-wood Maggie is a virchoous young female, an’ it shore frets me to hear her lightly allooded to.”
As Pike’s Peak Martin’s disapproval took the violent form of smiting the maligner upon the head with an 8-inch pistol, the social status of the lady was ever after regarded as fixed.
Chicken Bill was not the one to eat his heart in silence, and his passion was but one day old when he laid hand and fortune at Deadwood Maggie’s feet. That maiden for her part displayed a suspicious front, born perhaps of an experience of the perfidy of man. Deadwood Maggie was inclined to a scorn of Chicken Bill and his proffer of instant wedlock.
“Not on your life!” was Deadwood Maggie’s reply.
But Chicken Bill persisted; he longed more ardently because of this rebuff. To soften Deadwood Maggie he threw a gallant arm about her and drew her to his bosom.
“Don’t be in sech a hurry to lose me,” said Chicken Bill on this sentimental occasion.
Deadwood Maggie was arranging tables at the time for those guests who from mine and store and bar-room would come, stamping and famishing, an hour later. Chicken Bill and she for the moment had the apartment to themselves. Goaded by her lover’s sweet persistency, and unable to phrase a retort that should do her feelings justice, Deadwood Maggie fell to the trite expedient of breaking a butter-dish on the head of Chicken Bill.
“Now pull your freight,” said she, “or I’ll chunk you up with all the crockery in the camp.”
Finding Deadwood Maggie obdurate, Chicken Bill for the nonce withdrew to consider the situation. He was in no sort dispirited; he regarded the butter-dish and those threats which came after it as marks of maiden coyness; they were decisive of nothing.
“She wasn’t in the mood,” said Chicken Bill, as he explained his repulse to the bar-keeper of the Four Flush Saloon; “but I’ll get my lariat on her yet. Next time I’ll rope with a larger loop.”