"'Tell that Decf Woman,' says this yere Pinon Bill, 'that I has an even thousand dollars in my war-bags, when I stacks in her offspring ag'inst the camp to win; an' I deems it only squar' to divide the pot with the baby. The kid an' me's partners in the play that a-way, an' the enclosed is the kid's share. Saw this yere dinero off on her somehow; an' make her pull her freight. Wolfville's no good place to raise that baby.'
"'Which this Pinon Bill ain't so bad neither,' says Dan Boggs, when he hears it. 'Gents, I proposes the health of this outlaw. Barkeep, see what they takes in behalf of Pinon Bill.'
"The letter an' the money's dead straight, an' the Deef Woman can't dodge or go 'round. All of which Missis Rucker takes a day off an' beats it into her by makin' signs. It's like two Injuns talkin'. It all winds up by the Deef Woman p'intin' out on her way some'ers East, an' thar ain't one of us ever sees the Major, the Deef Woman, the kid, nor yet this Pinon Bill, no more. Which this last, however, is not regarded as food for deep regrets,"
CHAPTER XXIV. CRAWFISH JIM.
"Don't I never tell you the story of the death of Crawfish Jim?"
The Old Cattleman bent upon me an eye of benevolent inquiry. I assured him that the details of the taking off of Crawfish Jim were as a sealed book to me. But I would blithely listen.
"What was the fate of Crawfish Jim?"I asked. The name seemed a promise in itself.
"Nothin' much for a fate, Crawfish's ain't," rejoined the Old Cattleman. "Nothin' whatever compared to some fates I keeps tabs onto. It was this a-way: Crawfish Jim was a sheep-man, an' has a camp out in the foothills of the Tres Hermanas, mebby it's thirty miles back from Wolfville. This yere Crawfish Jim was a pecooliar person; plumb locoed, like all sheep-men. They has to be crazy or they wouldn't pester 'round in no sech disrepootable pursoots as sheep.