"'No,' says Dan, 'they don't lock me up none, but——'
"'Then you lose,' insists Dave, mighty prompt.
"'But hold on,' says Dan; 'don't get your chips down so quick. As I starts to explain, I ain't locked up; but it's because I'm in a camp like Wolfville yere that ain't sunk to the level of no calaboose. But what comes to be the same, I'm taken captive an' held as sech ontil the roodiments of Western sense is done beat into me. It takes the yoonited efforts of four of the soonest sharps that ever happens; an' final, they succeeds to a p'int that I'm deemed cap'ble of goin' about alone.'
"'Well,' retorts Dave, 'I won't dispoote with you; an' even at that I regyards your present attitoode as one of bluff. I thinks you're shore the cunnin'est wolf in the territory, Dan, an' allers is. But, as I'm sayin', when I first begins to infest Tucson, I'm so ignorant it's a stain on that meetropolis. At this yere epock, Tucson ain't spraddled to its present proud dimensions. A gent might have thrown the loop of a lariat about the outfit an' drug it after him with a pony. No one, however, performs this labour, as the camp is as petyoolant as a t'rant'ler an' any onauthorised dalliance with its sensibilities would have led to vivid plays. Still, she ain't big, Tucson ain't; an' I learns my way about from centre to suburbs in the first ten minutes.
"'At the beginnin' I'm a heap timid. I suffers from the common eastern theery an' looks on Arizona as a region where it's murder straight an' lynchin' for a place. You-all may jedge from that how erroneous is my idees. Then, as now, the distinguishin' feacher of Tucson existence is a heavenly ca'm. Troo, thar's moments when the air nacherally fills up with bullets like they're a passel of swallow-birds, an' they hums an' sings their merry madrigals. However, these busy seasons don't set in so often nor last so long but peaceful folks has ample chance to breathe.
"'Never does I b'ar witness to as many as seven contemporaneous remainders but once; and then thar's cause. It's in a poker game; an' the barkeep brings the dealer a cold deck onder a tray whereon he purveys the drinks. Which the discovery of this yere solecism, as you-all well imagines, arouses interest, earnest an' widespread like I deescribes. I counts up when the smoke lifts an' finds that seven has sought eternal peace. Commonly two is the number; three bein' quite a shipment. Shore, it's speshul sickly when as many as seven quits out together!
"'Bein' timid an' ignorant I takes good advice. It's in the Oriental. Thar's that old gray cimmaron hibernatin' about the bar whose name is Jeffords.
"'"Be you-all conversant with that gun you packs?" asks Jeffords.
"'I feels the hot blush mountin' in my tender cheeks, but I concedes I ain't. "Pard," I replies, "speakin' confidenshul an' between gent an' gent, this yere weepon is plumb novel to me."
"'"Which I allows as much," he says, "from the egreegious way you fidges with it. Now let me pass you-all a p'inter from the peaks of experience. You caper back to the tavern an' take that weepon off. Or what's as well, you pass it across to the barkeep. If you-all goes romancin' 'round with hardware at your belt it's even money it'll get you beefed. Allers remember while in Arizona that you'll never get plugged—onless by inadvertence—as long as you wander about in onheeled innocence. No gunless gent gets downed; sech is the onbreakable roole."