"In doo time the picture's hung up back of the Red Light bar.

Regyarded as a portrait it's sh.o.r.e some desp'rate, an' even Enright sort o' half reepents. Monte, after studyin' it a while, begins to get sore in earnest. Them scales, like the scriptoors say, certainly do fall from his eyes.

"'Jack,' he says, appealin' to Moore, who happens to be present, 'does that thing look like me?'

"'Why, yes,' Jack replies, squintin' his left eye a heap critical; 'to be sh.o.r.e it flatters you some, but then them artists gen'rally does.'

"'Jack, if I'm that feeble as to go believin' what you says, I'd borry a shotgun from the express company and blow off the top of my head.

That ain't the portrait of no hooman bein"--an' Monte raises a dispa'rin' hand at the picture; 'it's a croode preesentation of some onnacheral cross between a coyote and a cowskin trunk.'

"Cherokee gets up from behind his lay-out, an' strolls over so's to get a line on the picture. He takes a long an' disparagin' survey.

"'It ain't that I'm incitin' you to voylence, Monte,' he remarks final, 'but if you owes a dooty to s'ciety, don't forget that you owes also a dooty to yourse'f. You'll be lackin' in se'f-respect if you don't give Sam Enright two weeks to take that outrage down, an' if it ain't removed by then you'll bust it.'

"Black Jack is ag'in the picture, too.

"'Not,' he says, 'that I wants to put the smother on it entire; only I figger it'd look better in the post office, folks not makin' it so much of a hangout. Regyarded commercial, it's a setback to the Red Light. Some gent comes trackin' up intent on drinks, an' feelin' gala.

After one glance at Monte up thar it's all off. That reveller's changed his mind, an' staggers out into the open ag'in without a word.

The joint is daily knocked for about the price of a stack of bloos, as the direct result of that work of art. Which I'd as soon have a gila monster in the winder.'

"Mike ain't present none when all this yere flattery is flyin'. If he was thar in person nothin' would have been said. Whoever'd be that hardened as to go harrowin' up the sens'tive soul of a artist, even if his work don't grade as corn-fed?

"Some later tribyoote to his talents, however, reaches the y'ears of Mike. On the back of Black Jack's protests the Lightnin' Bug, who's come over from Red Dog for a little visit, drifts in. When he sees Monte's portrait his eyes lights up like a honka-tonk on Sat.u.r.day night.

"'Rattlesnakes an' stingin' lizards!' he cries; 'which I'm a Mexican if you-all ain't gone an' got him painted! However do you-all manage?

I remembers when we captures him it's the last spring round-up but one. Two weeks goes by before ever we gets him so he'll w'ar clothes!

An' even then we-all has to blindfold him an' back him in!'

"'Whoever do you reckon that is, Bug?' asks Black Jack.

"'It's that locoed Digger Injun, ain't it?' says the Bug; 'him we corrals, that time, livin' on ants an' crickets, an' roots an' yarbs, over in Potato canyon?'

"'It's Monte.'

"'Monte! Does anybody get killed about it?'

"Black Jack mentions Mike as the artist.

"'What, that Dutch galoot with the long ha'r?' says the Bug.

"'Which he's a Pole.'

"'Pole or Dutchman, what's the odds? I sees a party back in Looeyville whose ha'r's most as long as his. We entices him to a barber shop on a bet to have it cut, an' I'm ag'in the union if four flyin' squirrels don't come scootin' out. They've been nestin' in it.'

"The Bug swings lightly into the saddle after a while, an' goes clatterin' back to Red Dog. No notice would have been took of what he says, only Monte, who hears it from Black Jack, is that malev'lent he goes an' tells Mike.

"'You-all will make trouble between 'em, Monte,' Nell reemonstrates, when Monte's braggin' in his besotted way about what he's done.

"'That's all right, Nellie. Both of 'em's been insultin' me; Mike by paintin' me so I'm a holy show, an' the Bug by lettin' on to take me for a Digger buck. S'ppose the Bug downs Mike, or Mike does up the Bug? Either way it's oats in your uncle Monte's feed box. That's me, Nellie; that's your old uncle Monte every time! Which, when it comes to cold intrigue, that a-way, I'm the swiftest sport in our set.'

"On hearin' about the Bug from Monte Mike gets plenty intemp'rate. He goes plumb in the air, an' stays thar. He gives it out that he's goin'

to prance over to Red Dog an' lay for the Bug. Nothin' but blood is goin' to do him.

"Thar's nothin' we can say or do to stop Mike, so after talkin' it over a spell we deecides to throw him loose, Enright first sendin'

word that he's harmless, an' not to be b.u.mped off.

"Upon receivin' Enright's word the Red Dog chief pa.s.ses on a warnin'

to the Bug. Mike mustn't, onder no circ.u.mstances, be killed. Bein'

he's a artist he's not reespons'ble.

"'Me kill him!' cries the Bug, who's scandalized at the idee; 'me take a gun to sech a insect! Gents, I've too much reespect for them good old faithful .45's of mine to play it as low down on 'em as all that.'

"Which there leeniencies I allers feels is on account of the little Joolie, an' the blind love she entertains for Mike. When the worst does come we carefully conceals from her the troo details, an' insists that the powder house goes off by itse'f.

"Then Nell, with Tucson Jennie and Missis Rucker to back her, carries the little Joolie girl the news. It's sh.o.r.e tough papers; an' Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie is kept racin' an' runnin' an' riotin'

between the O. K. House an' Mike's wickeyup, freightin' over camphor an' sim'lar reestor'tives to the little Joolie all night long, while Nellie holds her head.

"Does Mike's kickin' the bucket leave the little Joolie broke? It's this a-way: You see we-all chips in, an' makes up a fa'rly moderate pile to buy the _Linden in October_.

"'It's to remember your gifted husband by,' explains Enright, as him an' Peets an' Boggs goes over to clink down the gold, an' get the _Linden_. 'This yere transcendent spec'men shall never leave our hands.'

"'Not while we live!' declar's Peets.

"'It's a marv'lous picture!' returns the little Joolie girl, proud and tearful both at once.

"'Marv'lous!' repeats Peets; 'it's got the _Angelus_ beat four ways from the Jack.'

"'Which I should remark!' puts in Boggs. 'Why, Doc, this yere _Linden_ of ours sh.o.r.e makes that _Angelus_ thing look like an old beer stamp.'

"These yere outpourin's of onreestricted admiration sh.o.r.e does set the little Joolie to smilin' through her tears. Also, the bankroll they brings her sends her back to her folks in style.

"So you don't regyard it as the proper caper to go deceivin' the little Joolie girl? That's preecisely the p'sition a Bible sharp over in Tucson takes, when some party's mentionin' the business.

"'You go tell that doubtin' Thomas of a sky-pilot,' says Peets, on hearin' about it, 'that he can bet a ton of Watts' hymn books on it.

You-all say, too, for his pulpit guidance, that what looks like deceit, that a-way, is often simple del'cacy, while Christian charity freequent w'ars the face of fraud.'

"But I'm gettin' ahead of the wagons. Mike, who's a heap heated, goes lookin' for the Bug in the Tub of Blood S'loon. The Bug don't happen to be vis'ble no whar in the scen'ry when Mike comes clatterin' in. By way of a enterin' wedge Mike subscribes for a drink. As the Tub barkeep goes settin' out the gla.s.ses Mike, with his custom'ry gifts for gettin' himse'f in wrong, starts fomentin' trouble. An' at that it's simply his ignorance, an' a conceited deesire to show off among them Red Dogs.

"As the Tub barkeep slams down the crockery Mike barks up sort o'

sharp an' peevish:

"'The ice! Ain't you people got no ice?'

"The Tub barkeep takes a sour squinch-owl look at Mike. Then he goes softly swabbin' off the counter.

"After a while he looks up an' says:

"'Which you don't notice no swirlin' drifts of snow outside, do you?

You ain't been swallowed up in no blizzard, be you, comin' into town?