"Once I knows Peets to pa.s.s on the failin' condition of a tenderfoot who's bunked in an' allows he'll die a lot over to the O. K.

Restauraw. Peets decides this yere shorthorn needs abstinence from licker. Peets breaks the news to the onhappy victim, an' puts him on water till the crisis shall be past. Also, Peets notified the Red Light not to heed any requests of this party in respects to said nose-paint.

"It turns out this sick person, bonin' for licker as is plumb nacheral, forgets himse'f as a gent an' sort o' reckons he'll get fraudulent with Peets. He figgers he'll jest come Injunin' into the Red Light, quil himse'f about a few drinks surrept.i.tious, an' then go trackin' back to his blankets, an' Doc Peets none the wiser. So, like I says, this yere ill person fronts softly up to the Red Light bar an' calls for Valley Tan.

"Black Jack, the barkeep, don't know this party from a cross-L steer; he gets them mandates from Peets, but it never does strike Black Jack that this yere is the dyin' sport allooded to. In darkness that a-way, Black Jack tosses a gla.s.s on the bar an' shoves the bottle. It sh.o.r.e looks like that failin' shorthorn is goin' to quit winner, them recooperatifs.

"But, son, he's interrupted. He's filled his gla.s.s--an' he's been plenty free about it--an' stands thar with the bottle in his hand, when two guns bark, an' one bullet smashes the gla.s.s an' the other the bottle where this person is holdin' it. No, this artillery practice don't stampede me none; I'm plumb aware it's Doc Peets'

derringers from the go-off. Peets stands in the door, one of his little pup-guns in each hand.

"'Which I likes your aplomb!' says Black Jack to Peets, as he swabs off the bar in a peevish way. 'I makes it my boast that I'm the best-nachered barkeep between the Colorado an' the Rio Grande, an'

yet I'm free to confess, sech plays chafes me. May I ask,' an' Black Jack stops wipin' the bar an' turns on Peets plumb p'lite, 'what your idee is in thus shootin' your way into a commercial affair in which you has no interest?'

"'This ycre bibulous person is my patient,' says Peets, a heap haughty. 'I preescribes no licker; an' them preescriptions is goin'

to be filled, you bet! if I has to fill 'em with a gun. Whatever do you-all reckon a medical pract.i.tioner is? Do you figger he's a Mexican, an' that his diagnosises, that a-way, don't go? I notifies you this mornin' as I stands yere gettin' my third drink, that if this outcast comes trackin' in with demands for nose-paint, to remember he's sick an' throw him out on his head. An' yere's how I'm obeyed!'

"Which, of course, this explains things to Black Jack, an' he sees his inadvertences. He comes out from behind the bar to where this sick maverick has done fainted in the confoosion, an' collars him an' sets him on a char.

"'Doc,' says Black Jack, when he's got the wilted gent planted firm an' safe, 'I tenders my regrets. Havin' neither brands nor y'earmarks to guide by, I never recognizes this person as your invalid at all; none whatever. I'd sh.o.r.e bent a gun on him an'

hara.s.sed him back into his lair, as you requests, if I suspects his ident.i.ty. To show I'm on the squar', Doc, I'll do this party any voylence, even at this late hour, which you think will make amends.'

"'Your apol'gy is accepted,' says Peets, but still haughty; 'I descerns how you gets maladroit through errors over which you has no control. As to this person, who's so full of stealthy cunnin', he's all right. So long as he don't get no licker, no voylence is called for in his case.' An' with that Peets conducts his patient, who's come to ag'in, back to his reservation.

"But I onbuckles this afternoon to tell you-all about Old Man Enright's early love, an' if I aims to make the trip before the moon comes up, I better hit the trail of them reminiscences an' no further delays.

"It's in the back room of the New York Store where the casks be, an'

Enright, on whose nerves an' sperits Peets' preescriptions of 'no licker' has been feedin' for two full days, sits thar sort o'

fidgin' with his fingers an' movin' his feet in a way which shows he's a heap on aige. Thar's a melancholy settles on us all, as we camps 'round on crates an' shoe boxes an' silently sympathizes with Enright to see him so redooced. At last the grand old chief starts in to talk without questions or requests.

"'If you-all don't mind,' says Enright, 'I'll let go a handful of mem'ries touchin' my yooth. Thar's nothin' like maladies to make a gent sentimental, onless it be gettin' shot up or cut up with bullets or bowies; an' these yere visitations, which Peets thinks is alkali an' I holds is the burdens of them years of mine, sh.o.r.e leaves me plumb romantic.

'Which I've been thinkin' all day, between times when I'm thinkin'

of licker, of Polly Hawks; an' I'll say right yere she's my first an' only love. She's a fine young female, is Polly--tall as a saplin', with a arm on her like a cant-hook. Polly can lift an' hang up a side of beef, an' is as good as two hands at a log-rollin'.

"'This yere's back in old Tennessee on the banks of the c.u.mberland.

It's about six years followin' on the Mexican war, an' I'm shot up'ards into the semblances of a man. My affections for Polly has their beginnin's in a c.o.o.n-hunt into which b'ars an' dogs gets commingled in painful profoosion.

"'I ain't the wonder of a week with a rifle now, since I'm old an'

dim, but them times on the c.u.mberland I has fame as sech. More'n once, ag'inst the best there is in either the c.u.mberland or the Tennessee bottoms, or on the ridge between, I've won as good as, say first, second and fifth quarters in a shoot for the beef.'

"'Whatever do you-all call a fifth quarter of beef?' asks Dan Boggs.

'Four quarters is all I'm ever able to count to the anamile.'

"'It's yooth an' inexperience,' says Enright, 'that prompts them queries. The fifth quarter is the hide an' tallow; an' also thar's a sixth quarter, the same bein' the bullets in the stump which makes the target, an' which is dug out a whole lot, lead bein' plenty infrequent in them days I'm dreamin' of.

"'As I'm sayin', when Dan lams loose them thick head questions, I'm a renowned shot, an' my weakness is huntin' b'ars. I finds 'em an'

kills 'em that easy, I thinks thar's nothin' in the world but b'ars.

An' when I ain't huntin' b'ars, I'm layin' for deer; an' when I ain't layin' for deer, I'm squawkin' turkeys; an' when I ain't squawkin' turkeys, I'm out nights with a pa.s.sel of misfit dogs I harbors, a shakin' up the scenery for racc.o.o.ns. Altogether, I'm some busy as you-all may well infer.

"'One night I'm c.o.o.n huntin'. The dogs trees over on Rapid Run. When I arrives, the whole pack is cirkled 'round the base of a big beech, singin'; my old Andrew Jackson dog leadin' the choir with the air, an' my Thomas Benton dog growlin' ba.s.s, while the others warbles what parts they will, indiscrim'nate.

"'Nacherally, the dogs can't climb the tree none, an' I has to make that play myse'f. I lays down my gun, an' shucks my belts an' knife, an' goes swarmin' up the beech. It's sh.o.r.ely a teedious enterprise, an' some rough besides. That beech seems as full of spikes an'

thorns as a honey locust--its a sort o' porkypine of a tree.

"'Which I works my lacerated way into the lower branches, an' then, glances up ag'in the firmaments to locate the c.o.o.n. He ain't vis'ble none; he's higher up an' the leaves an' bresh hides him. I goes on till I'm twenty foot from the ground; then I looks up ag'in,

"'Gents, it ain't no c.o.o.n; it's a b'ar, black as paint an' as big as a baggage wagon. He ain't two foot above me too; an' the sight of him, settin' thar like a black bale of cotton, an' his nearness, an'

partic'larly a few terse remarks he lets drop, comes mighty clost to astonishin' me to death. I thinks of my gun; an' then I lets go all bolts to go an' get it. Sh.o.r.e, I falls outen the tree; thar ain't no time to descend slow an' dignified.

"'As I comes crashin' along through them beech boughs, it inculcates a misonderstandin' among the dogs. Andrew Jackson, Thomas Benton an'

the others is convoked about that tree on a purely c.o.o.n theery. They expects me to knock the c.o.o.n down to 'em. They sh.o.r.ely do not expect me to come tumblin' none myse'f. It tharfore befalls that when I makes my deboo among 'em, them canines, blinded an' besotted as I say with thoughts of c.o.o.n, prounces upon me in a body. Every dog rends off a speciment of me. They don't bite twice; they perceives by the taste that it ain't no c.o.o.n an' desists.

"'Which I don't reckon their worryin' me would have become a continyoous performance nohow; for me an' the dogs is hardly tangled up that a-way, when we're interfered with by the b'ar. Looks like the example I sets is infectious; for when I lets go, the b'ar lets go; an' I hardly hits the ground an' becomes the ragin' center of interest to Andrew Jackson, Thomas Benton an' them others, when the b'ar is down on all of us like the old c.u.mberland on a sandbar doorin' a spring rise. I sh.o.r.e regyards his advent that a-way as the day of jedgment.

"'No, we don't corral him. The b'ar simply r'ars back long enough to put Andrew Jackson an' Thomas Benton into mournin', an' then goes scuttlin' off through the bushes like the grace of heaven through a camp-meetin'. As for myse'f, I lays thar; an' what between dog an'

b'ar an' the fall I gets, I'm as completely a thing of the past as ever finds refooge in that strip of timber. As near as I makes out by feelin' of myse'f, I ain't fit to make gourds out of. Of course, she's a mistake on the part of the dogs, an' plumb accidental as far as the b'ar's concerned; but it sh.o.r.e crumples me up as entirely as if this yere outfit of anamiles plots the play for a month.

"'With the last flicker of my failin' strength, I crawls to my old gent's teepee an' is took in. An' you sh.o.r.e should have heard the language of that household when they sees the full an' awful extent them dogs an' that b'ar lays me waste. Which I'm layed up eight weeks.

"'My old gent goes grumblin' off in the mornin', an' rounds up old Aunt Tilly Hawks to nurse me. Old Aunt Tilly lives over on the Painted Post, an' is plumb learned in yarbs an' sech as Injun turnips, opydeldock, live-forever, skoke-berry roots, jinson an'

whitewood bark. An' so they ropes up Aunt Tilly Hawks an' tells her to ride herd on my wounds an' dislocations.

"'But I'm plumb weak an' nervous an' can't stand Aunt Tilly none.

She ain't got no upper teeth, same as a cow, her face is wrinkled like a burnt boot, an' she dips snuff. Moreover, she gives me the horrors by allers singin' in a quaverin' way

"'Hark from the tombs a doleful sound, Mine y'ears attend the cry.

Ye livin' men come view the ground Where you shall shortly lie.

"'Aunt Tilly sounds a heap like a tea-kettle when she's renderin'

this yere madrigal, an' that, an' the words, an' all the rest, makes me gloomy an' dejected. I'm sh.o.r.e pinin' away onder these yere malign inflooences, when my old gent notes I ain't recooperatin', an' so he guesses the cause; an' with that he gives Aunt Tilly a lay-off, an' tells her to send along her niece Polly to take her place,

"'Thar's a encouragin' difference. Polly is big an' strong like I states; but her eyes is like stars, an' she's as full of sweetness as a bee tree or a bar'l of m'la.s.ses. So Polly camps down by my couch of pain an' begins dallyin' soothin'ly with my heated brow. I commences recoverin' from them attacks of b'ars an' dogs instanter.

"'This yere Polly Hawks ain't none new to me. I never co'ts her; but I meets her frequent at barn raisin's an' quiltin's, which allers winds up in a dance; an' in them games an' merriments, sech as "bowin' to the wittiest, kneelin' to the prettiest, an' kissin' the one you loves the best," I more than once regyards Polly as an alloorin' form of hooman hollyhock, an' selects her. But thar's no flush of burnin' love; nothin' nore than them amiable formalities which befits the o'casion.

"'While this yere Polly is nursin' me, however, she takes on a different att.i.toode a whole lot. It looks like I begins to need her permanent, an' every time I sets my eyes on her I feels as soft as b'ar's grease. It's sh.o.r.ely love; that Polly Hawks is as sweet an'

luscious as a roast apple.'

"'Is she for troo so lovely?' asks Faro Nell, who's been hangin'

onto Enright's words.

"'Frankly, Nellie,' says Enright, sort o' pinchin' down his bluff; 'now that I'm ca'mer an' my blood is cool, this yere Polly don't seem so plumb prismatic. Still, I must say, she's plenty radiant.'

"'Does you-all,' says Dan Boggs, 'put this yere Polly in nom'nation to be your wife while you're quiled up sick? '

"'No, I defers them offers to moments when I'm more robust,' says Enright.

"'You sh.o.r.e oughter rode at her while you're sick that a-way,'

remonstrates Boggs. 'That's the time to set your stack down. Females is easy moved to pity, an', as I've heared--for I've nothin' to go by, personal, since I'm never married an' is never sick none--is a heap more p.r.o.ne to wed a gent who's sick, than when he's well a lot.'