"You may tell the story, Davis," said Kentuck, magnanimously. "I want ter chaw terbacker fur awhile, an' I can't talk an' chaw."
Tom Davis gladly took up the theme, as it gave him an opportunity to display his oratorical and rhetorical abilities, of which he was almost as proud as he was of his skill in hiding cards in his sleeves, his hat, his hair, his boots.
"Gentlemen," he began, hesitating an instant—while, attention being fixed on what he was about to say, he stocked the cards—"gentlemen, it's one of the curusest things you ever heerd in yer life. It seems thar was a woman at the bottom of it—I believe thar allers is at the bottom of everything. Waal, he stole another man's sunflower—I've heerd Bob say so, hisself—an' the other feller got mad—as mad as thunder—an', when he found his gal had vamosed with Bob, he cursed him; an' his curse was this: that as long as he lived all that he did should prosper for a little while, an' jest when he begun to enj'y it, a curse should come onto it. Ef it wor business, when he thought he was sure of a good thing, it should fail. Ef it wor love, the woman he loved should die. Ef it wor children, they should grow up, and turn agin' him; or, if they stuck to him, the same curse should be on them; what they undertook should fail; what they loved should die."
"Did the woman he loved die? did his children desert him?" asked the Englishman, eagerly.
"His wife died seven year arter he married her; one ov his boys was killed by his horse fallin' on him; the other got into bad company down to Red Bluffs, an', arter leadin' the old man a devil of a life for two year or more, run off, an' got taken by the lynchers—so folks said. I b'lieve he has a gal, back in the States; but his wife's folks won't let her come to Californy. They're a-eddicatin' her quite grand, an' she writes a powerful nice letter. The old man showed me one, last time he was up to the Bar. Han'some as any school-marm's ever ye saw. But Bob says he don't see what's the use; somethin's sure to happen her; somethin' allers does happen to him an' to his chillern."
"Is that why he thinks he's cursed—because 'something always happens?'" asked Gentleman Bill, indifferently.
"Sart'in; an' it's so, as sure as yer born. Nothin' never pans out long with Bob Matheny. His beginnin's is all good, an' his endin's all bad. I reckon thar never was a man to Wilson's Bar has been cleaned eout, down to the bed-rock, as often as Matheny."
"Is he a good man?" asked the Englishman, interested.
"Never had a better man to Wilson's Bar," responded Kentuck, decidedly, as he cast his quid under the table. "He ain't a lucky feller, an' he's mighty superstitious an' the like; but I make a heap o' Bob Matheny. His luck an' his cuss don't hurt him none for me. It's jest a notion, mebbe."
"Notion or no notion," said Davis, with a knowing leer, "he's not the man to marry a nice gal like that 'un he's got up to the Rest. Better let her be for some lucky young feller as could make her happy. Don't you say so, boys?"