"Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?"
"Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with a towel.
At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow.
"Kill him!" says this man. "What for?"
"For insultin' of him, of course."
"Oh, he's drunk," says the man, as if that explained anythin'.
That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home, and it wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I don't call four o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but it's just the shank of the evenin' for to-night.
Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't know sic em, about minin'; and before long I KNEW that I didn't 'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountains—-not like our'n—too much timber to be comfortable. At night I got to droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin', and they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was the wisest of the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my consolation, and made out to forget comparing Colorado with God's country.
About three times a week this Irishman I told you of—name O'Toole—comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin' high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on the peck.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about six times. "Say, do you hear?"