Chapter 2

"Cherokee's face is like a mask, the face of the thorough-paced kyard sharp. He shows no more astonishment than if Dead Shot's been settin' in ag'inst his game every evenin' for a month.

"'One hundred an' two hundred,' says Cherokee.

"_'Bueno!'_ an' Dead Shot lays down two one-hundred dollar bills between the king and queen.

"Thar's two turns. The third the kyards falls 'ten-king,' an' Nell, from her place on the lookout's stool, shoves over two hundred dollars in bloo checks. Thar they are, with the two one-hundred dollar bills, between the king an' queen.

"'Does it go as it lays?' asks Dead Shot, it bein' double the limit.

"'It goes,' says Cherokee, never movin' a muscle.

"One turn, an' the kyards falls 'trey-queen.' Nell shoves four hundred across to match up with Dead Shot's four hundred.

"'An' now?' Dead Shot asks.

"'I'll turn for it,' Cherokee responds.

"It's yere that Dead Shot's luck goes back on him. The turn comes 'queen-jack,' an' Nell rakes down the eight hundred.

"Dead Shot's hand goes to the butt of his gun.

"'I've been robbed,' he growls; 'thar's fifty-three kyards in that deck.'

"Cherokee's on his feet, his eyes like two steel p'ints, gun half drawed. But Nell's as quick. Her hand's on Cherokee's, an' she keeps his gun whar it belongs.

"'Steady!' she says; 'can't you see he's only coaxin' you to bump him off?' Then, with her face full on Dead Shot, she continyoos: 'It won't do, Dead Shot; it won't do none! You-all can't get it handed to you yere! You're in the wrong shop; you-all ought to try next door!' An' Nell p'ints with her little thumb through the wall to the post office.

"Dead Shot stands thar the color of seegyar ashes, while Cherokee settles ca'mly back in his cha'r. Cherokee's face is as bar' of expression as a blank piece of paper, as he runs his eye along the lay-out, makin' ready for the next turn. Thar's mebby a dozen of us playin', but not a word is spoke. Everyone is onto Dead Shot's little game, the moment Nell begins to talk.

"Matters seems to hang on centers, ontil Nell stretches across an' lays her baby hand on Dead Shot's:

"'Thar ain't a soul in sight,' she says, mighty soft an' good, 'but what's your friend, Dead Shot.'

"Dead Shot, pale as a candle, wheels toward the door.

"'Pore Dead Shot!' murmurs Nell, the tears in her eyes, to that extent she has to ask Boggs to take her place as lookout.

"Four hours goes by, an' thar's the poundin' of a pony's hoofs, an' the creak of saddle-leathers, out in front. It's the Red Dog chief, who's come lookin' for Enright.

"They confabs a minute or two at a table to the r'ar, an' then Enright calls Peets over.

"'Dead Shot's gone an' got himse'f downed,' he says.

"'It's on the squar' gents,' explains the Red Dog chief; 'Dead Shot'll say so himself. He jest nacherally comes huntin' it.'

"It looks like Dead Shot, after that failure with Cherokee in the Red Light, p'ints across for Red Dog. He searches out a party who's called the Lightnin' Bug, on account of the spontaneous character of his six-shooter. Dead Shot finds the Lightnin' Bug talkin' with two fellow gents. He listens awhile, an' then takes charge of the conversation.

"'Bug,' he says, raisin' his voice like it's a challenge--'Bug, only I'm afraid folks'll string you up a whole lot, I'd say it's you who stood up the stage last week in Apache Canyon. Also'--an' yere Dead Shot takes to gropin' about in his jeans, same as if he's feelin' for a knife--'it's mighty customary with me, on occasions sech as this, to cut off the y'ears of----'

"Dead Shot stops short, by reason of a bullet from the Bug's pistol which lodges in his lungs.

"When Peets an' Enright finds him, he's spread out on the Red Dog chief's blankets, coughin' blood, with the sorrow-stricken Bug proppin' him up one moment to drink water, an' sheddin' tears over him the next, alternate.

"The Red Dog chief leads out the weepin' Bug, who's lamentin' mighty grievous, an' leaves Enright an' Peets with Dead Shot.

"'It's all right, gents,' whispers Dead Shot; 'I comes lookin' for it, an' I gets it. Likewise, she ain't to blame; it's me. I oughtn't to have married her that time--she only a girl, an' me a full-growed man who should 'av had sense for both.'

"'That's no lie,' says Peets, an' Dead Shot gives him a grateful look.

"'No,' he goes on, 'she's too fine, too high--I wasn't her breed. An' I ought to have seen it.' Yere he has a tussle to hang on.

"Peets pours him out some whiskey.

"'It's licker, ain't it?' Dead Shot gasps, sniffin' the glass. 'I'm for water, Doc, licker makin' me that ornery.'

"'Down with it,' urges Peets. 'Which, if I'm a jedge, you'll pack in long before you're due to start anything extra serious, even if you drinkt a gallon.'

"'Shore!' agrees Dead Shot, as though the idee brings him relief. 'For a moment it slips my mind about me bein' plugged. But as I'm sayin', gents, don't blame her. An' don't blame him. I has my chance, an' has it all framed up, too, when I crosses up with 'em recent over in Tucson, to kill 'em both. But I can't do it, gents. The six-shooter at sech a time's played out. That's straight; it don't fill the bill; it ain't adequate, that a-way. So all I can do is feel sorry for 'em, an' never let 'em know I knows. For, after all, it ain't their fault, it's mine. You sports see that, don't you? She's never meant for me, bein' too fine; an', me a man, I ought to have knowed.'

"Dead Shot ceases talkin', an' Enright glances at Peets. Peets shakes his head plenty sorrowful.

"'Go on,' he says to Dead Shot; 'you-all wants us to do--what?'

"'Thar you be!' an' at the sound of Peets' voice Dead Shot's mind comes creepin' back to camp. 'She'll be happy with him--they havin' so much in common--an' him an' her bein' eddicated that a-way--an' him havin' traveled a whole lot! An' this yere's what I wants, gents. I wants you-all, as a kindness to me an' in a friendly way--seein' I can't stay none to look-out the play myse'f--to promise to sort o' supervise round an' put them nuptials over right. I takes time by the forelock an' sends to Tucson for a sky-pilot back two days ago. Bar accidents, he'll be in camp by to-morry. He can work in at the funeral, too, an' make it a whipsaw.'

"Dead Shot turns his eyes on Enright. It's always so about our old chief; every party who's in trouble heads for him like a coyote for a camp fire.

"'You'll shore see that he marries her?--Promise!'

"Thar's a quaver in Dead Shot's voice, Peets tells me, that's like a pra'r.

"'Thar's my hand, Dead Shot,' says Enright, who's chokin' a little. 'So far as the letter man's concerned, it'll be the altar or the windmill, Jack Moore an' a lariat or that preacher party you refers to.'

"Dead Shot's gettin' mighty weak. After Enright promises he leans back like he's takin' a rest. He's so still they're beginnin' to figger he's done cashed in; but all at once he starts up like he's overlooked some bet, an' has turned back from eternity to tend to it.

"'About Cherokee an' his box,' he whispers; 'that's a lyin' bluff I makes. Tell him I don't mean nothin'; I'm only out to draw his fire.'

"After this Dead Shot only rouses once. His voice ain't more'n a sigh.

"'I forgets to tell you,' he says, 'to give her my love. An' you say, too, that I'm bumped off like snuffin' out a candle--too plumb quick for her to get yere. An' don't blame her, gents; it's not her fault, it's mine.'

"It's the week after the fooneral. The postmaster's still in town, partly by nacheral preference, partly because Enright notifies Jack Moore to ride herd on him, an' fill him as full of lead as a bag of bullets in event he ondertakes to go stampedin' off.

"In the Red Light the seventh evenin' Enright rounds up Peets.

"'Doc,' he says, 'a month would be more respect'ble, but this yere's beginnin' to tell on me.'

"'Besides,' Peets chips in, by way of he'pin' Enright out, 'that preacher sharp corraled over to Missis Rucker's is gettin' restless. Onless we side-lines or puts hobbles on that divine we-all can't expect to go holdin' him much longer.'

"Enright leads the way to the r'ar wareroom of the Noo York store, which bein' whar the stranglers holds their meetin's is Wolfville's hall of jestice. After licker is brought Enright sends Jack Moore for the postmaster, who comes in lookin' plenty white. Missis Rucker brings over the divine; an' next Dead Shot's widow--she's plumb lovely in black--appears on the arm of Peets, who goes in person.

"Thar's a question in the widow's eye, like she don't onderstand.

"'Roll your game,' says Enright to the preacher sharp.

"It's yere an' now Dead Shot's widow fully b'ars out that philos'pher who announces so plumb cold, that a-way, that women's the sublimation of the onexpected. Jack Moore's jest beginnin' to manoover that recreant public servant into p'sition on the widow's left hand, so's he can be married to the best advantage, an' the preacher sharp's gettin' out an' openin' his book of rooles, when the widow draws back.

"P'intin' at the bridegroom postmaster, same as if he's a stingin' lizard, she addresses Enright.

"'Whatever's the meanin' of this?'

"'Merely the croode preelim'naries, Ma'am,' Enright explains, 'to what we-all trusts will prove a fa'rly deesir'ble weddin'.'

"'Me marry him?' an' the onmitigated scorn that relict exhibits, to say nothin' of her tone of voice, shore makes the postmaster bridegroom feel chagrined.

"'You'll pardon us, Ma'am,' returns Enright, soft an' depreecatory, tryin' to get her feelin's bedded down, 'which you'll shore pardon us if in our dullness we misreads your sentiments. You see, the notion gets somehow proned into us that you wants this party. Which if we makes a mistake, by way of repa'rin' that error, let me say that if thar's any one else in sight whom you preefers, an' who's s'fficiently single an' yoothful to render him el'gible for wedlock,'--yere Enright takes in Boggs an' Texas with his gaze, wharat Texas grows as green-eyed as a cornered bobcat--'he's yours, Ma'am, on your p'intin' him out.'

"'Which I don't want to marry no one,' cries the widow, commencin' to sob. 'An' as for marryin' him speshul'--yere she glances at the bridegroom postmaster in sech a hot an' drastic way he's left shrivellin' in his own shame--'I'd sooner live an' die the widow of Dead Shot Abner Baker than be the wife of a cornfield full of sech.'

"Everybody stares, an' Enright takes a modicum of Old Jordan.

"'You don't deeserve this none,' he says at last, turnin' to the postmaster bridegroom. 'Onder the circumstances, however, thar's nothin' left for me to do as cha'rman but deeclar' this yere weddin' a misdeal.'

"Texas is plumb disgusted.

"'Don't some folks have nigger luck, Dan?' he says.

"Later, after thinkin' things up an' down in his mind, Texas takes ombrage at Enright's invitin' Dead Shot's widow to look him an' Boggs over that a-way, an' take her pick.

"'Which sech plays don't stand ace-high with me, Sam,' Texas says--'you tryin' to auction me off like you does. Even a stranger, with a half-way hooman heart, after hearin' my story would say that I already suffers enough. An' yet you, who calls yourse'f my friend, does all that lays in your callous power to thrust me back into torment.'

"'Texas,' replies Enright, like he's bore about all he can, 'you shorely worries me with your conceit. If you-all won't take my word, then go take a good hard look at yourse'f in the glass. Thar's never the slightest risk, as everybody but you yourse'f sees plainly, of that lady or any other lady takin' you.'

"'You thinks not?' asks Texas, plenty incensed.

"'Which I _knows_ not. No lady's lot ain't quite that desp'rate.'

"'Well,' returns Texas, after a pause, his face expressin' his soreness, 'I'm yere to say, Sam, I don't agree with you, none whatever. You forgets that I've already been took in wedlock bonds by one lady. An' while that Laredo wife of mine is hard an' crooel, all Texas knows she's plumb partic'lar. Also, no one ever yet comes pirootin' up the trail who doubts her taste.'

"It's the evenin' before the preacher sharp goes back to Tucson, when Enright edges him off into a corner of the O. K. dinin' room.

"'Parson,' says Enright, lookin' like he's a heap bothered about somethin'--'parson, in addition to your little game as a preacher that a-way, you don't happen to be up none on table-tippin' or sperit rappin', same as them mediums, do you?'

"'Which I shore don't,' replies the preacher sharp, archin' his neck, indignant. 'Likewise, I regyards them cer'monials you alloodes to as satantic in their or'gin.'

"'Doubtless, parson,' returns Enright, some disapp'inted, 'doubtless. Still, if you-all but counts the rings on my horns, as givin' some impression of the years I've lived an' what troubles I've probably gone through, you'll onderstand that I ain't takin' Satan no more serious than a empty six-shooter. But the mere trooth is, parson, I'm pestered by them promises I makes deeceased. Which I'd give a yellow stack to get put next to Dead Shot's sperit long enough to explain concernin' them nuptials, an' make cl'ar jest how me an' the Doc falls down.'"

II

OLD MAN ENRIGHT'S UNCLE

"Which you'll excoose me," and the old cattleman replaced his glass upon the table with a decisive click, "if I fails to j'ine you in them sent'ments. For myse'f, I approves onreserved of both lies an' liars. Also, that reemark goes double when it comes to public liars tellin' public lies. Which, however se'fish it may sound, I prefers this gov'ment to last my time; an' it's my idee that if them statesmen back at Washington ever takes a hour off from their tax-eatin' an' tells the people the trooth, the whole trooth an' nothin' but the trooth of their affairs, said people'll be down on the sityooation instanter, like a weasel on a nest of field mice, an' wipe the face of nacher free an' cl'ar of these United States."

The above was drawn forth by my condemnatory comments on the published speech of a Senator, wherein the truth was as a grain of wheat in a bushel of mendacious chaff.

"Shore," continued the old gentleman, with the manner of one who delivers final judgment, "lies is not only to be applauded, but fostered. They're the angle-irons an' corner-braces that keeps plumb the social fabric, wantin' which the whole frame-work of soci'ty would go leanin' sideways, same as that Eyetalian tower you shows me the picture of the other day. Why, if everybody in the world was to go tellin' the trooth for the next hour ninety-nine folks in every hundred would be obleeged to put in the rest of their lives hidin' out.

"Do I myse'f ever lie?

"Frequent an' plumb cheerful. I bases life on the rooles laid down by that sharp who advises folks to do unto others as others does unto them, an' beat 'em to it. Believin', tharfore, in handin' a gent his own system, I makes it my onbreakable practice to allers lie to liars. Then, ag'in, whenever some impert'nent prairie dog takes to rummagin' 'round with queries to find out my deesigns, I onflaggingly fills him to the brim with all forms of misleadin' mendac'ty, an' casts every fictional obstruction in his path that's calc'lated to get between his heels an' trip him up. I shore do admire to stand all sech inquirin' mavericks on their heads, an' partic'ler if they're plottin' ag'in me.

"An' why not? A party that a-way, as I some time ago instructs you, ain't got no more right to search my head than to search my warbags, an' a gent who may lock a door may lie. Which, if you'll go off by yourse'f an' think this yere over, you'll see that it's so, an' so with a double cinch.

"Thar's statements, too, which, speakin' technical, might be regyarded as lyin' which don't in jestice class onder no sech head. For spec'men, when Dick Wooten, upon me askin' him how long he's been inhabitin' the Raton Pass, p'ints to the Spanish Peaks an' says, 'You see them em'nences? Well, when I pitches camp in this yere gully them mountings was two holes in the ground,' I don't feel like he's lyin'. I merely remembers that he steals the bluff from old Jim Bridger, grins an' lets it go at that.

"Likewise, I'm sim'larly onaffected towards that amiable multitoode who simply lies to entertain. These yere latter sports in their preevar'cations is public ben'factors. You-all can spread yourse'f out in the ca'm shadow of their yarns, same as if it's the shade of a tree, an' find tharin reefreshment an' reepose.

"While the most onimag'native of us, from Peets to Cherokee, ain't none puny as conversationists, the biggest liar, ondoubted, who ever comes romancin' into Wolfville is Enright's uncle, who visits him that time. Back in Tennessee a passel of scientists makes what this yere relative of Enright's deescribes as a 'Theological Survey' of some waste land he has on Gingham Mountain, an' finds coal. An' after that he's rich. Thus, in his old age, but chipper as a coopful of catbirds, he comes rackin' into town, allowin' he'll take a last look at his nephy, Sam, before he cashes in.

"His name is Stallins, bein' he's kin to Enright on his mother's side, an' since thar's nine ahead of him--Enright's mother bein' among the first--an' he don't come along as a infant ontil the heel of the domestic hunt that a-way, he's only got it on Enright by ten years in the matter of age.

"No, I shore shouldn't hes'tate none to mention him as a top-sawyer among liars, the same bein' his constant boast an' brag. He accepts the term as embodyin' a compliment, an' the quick way to get his bristles up is to su'gest that his genius for mendac'ty is beginnin' to bog down.

"For all that, Enright imparts to me, private, that the old gent as a liar ain't a marker to his former se'f.

"'You've heard tell,' Enright says, 'of neighborhood liars, an' township liars, an' county liars; an' mebby even of liars whose fame as sech might fill the frontiers of a state. Take my uncle, say forty years ago, an' give him the right allowance of baldface whiskey, an' the coast-to-coast expansiveness of them fictions he tosses off shore entitles him to the name of champion of the nation. Compar'd to him, Ananias is but a ambitious amatoor.'

"It's the second evenin' old Stallins is with us, an' Enright takes him over to Hamilton's Dance Hall, whar Boggs an' Texas--by partic'lar reequest--uplifts his aged sperits with that y'ear-splittin' an' toomultuous minyooet, the 'Love Dance of the Catamounts.' Which the exh'bition sets his mem'ry to millin', an' when we gets back to the Red Light he breaks out remin'scent.

"'Sammy,' he says to Enright, 'you was old enough to rec'llect when I has that location over on the upper Hawgthief? Gents,' he goes on, turnin' to us, 'it's a six-forty, an'--side hill, swamp an' bottom--as good a section as any to be crossed up with between the Painted Post an' the 'Possum Trot. It's that "Love Dance of the Catamounts" which brings it to my mind, since it's then an' thar, by virchoo of a catamount, I wins my Sarah Ann.

"'She's shore the star-eyed Venus of the Cumberland, is my Sarah Ann. Her ha'r, black as paint, is as thick as a pony's mane; her lips is the color of pokeberry juice; her cheeks--round an' soft--is as cl'ar an' bright an' glowin' as a sunset in Jooly; her teeth is as milk-white as the inside of a persimmon seed. She's five-foot-eleven without her mocassins, stands as up an' down as a pine tree, got a arm on her like the tiller of a scow, an' can heft a full-sized side of beef an' hang it on the hook. That's fifty years ago. She's back home on the Hawgthief waitin' for me now, my Sarah Ann is. You'd say she's as gray as a 'possum, an' as wrinkled as a burnt boot. Mebby so; but not to me, you bet. She's allers an' ever to me the same endoorin' hooman sunburst I co'tes an' marries that long time ago.'

"Old Stallins pauses to reefresh himse'f, an' Texas, who's been fidgetin' an' frettin' since the first mention of Sarah Ann, goes whisperin' to Boggs.

"'Can't some of you-all,' he says, plenty peevish, 'head this yere mushy old tarrapin off? This outfit knows what I suffers with that Laredo wife of mine. An' yet it looks like I'm to be tortured constant with tales of married folks, an' not one hand stretched out to save me from them reecitals.'

"'Brace up,' returns Boggs, tryin' to comfort him. 'Thicken your hide ag'in sech childish feelin's, an' don't be so easy pierced. Besides, I reckons the worst's over. He's comin' now to them catamounts.'

"Texas grinds his teeth, an' old Stallins resoomes his adventures.

"'My Sarah Ann's old pap has his location jest across the Hawgthief from me. Besides him an' Sarah Ann, thar ain't nobody but the old woman in the fam'ly, the balance of 'em havin' been swept away in a freshet. Shore, old man Bender--that's Sarah Ann's pap's name--has fourteen children once, Sarah Ann, who's oldest, bein' the first chicken on the domestic roost. But the other thirteen is carried off one evenin' when, what with the rains an' what with the snow meltin' back on Gingham Mountain, the Hawgthief gets its back up. Swish comes a big wave of water, an' you hear me them children goes coughin' an' kickin' an' splutterin' into the misty beyond.

"'Which I says thirteen only because that's whar old Bender allers puts his loss. Zeb Stiles, who lives on the Painted Post, insists that it's fifteen who gets swept away that time. He allows he counts them infant Benders two evenin's before, perched along on old Bender's palin's like pigeons on a limb. Thirteen or fifteen, however, it don't make no difference much, once they're submerged, that a-way.

"'Mebby I've been co'tin' my Sarah Ann for goin' on six months, givin' her b'ar robes an' mink pelts, with now an' then a pa'r of bald eagle wings to bresh the hearth. Nothin' heart-movin', however, comes off between us, Sarah Ann keepin' me at arm's len'th an' comportin' herse'f plumb uppish, as a maiden should. She's right; a likely girl can't be too conserv'tive techin' what young an' boundin' bucks comes co'tin' at her house.

"'Old Bender sort o' likes me in streaks. After he gets bereft of them thirteen or fifteen offspring he turns morose a whole lot, an' I used to go 'cross in my dugout an' cheer him up with my lies.

"'Could I lie?

"'My nephy, Sammy, thar'll nar'ate how I once lies a full-grown b'ar to death. The cunnin' varmint takes advantage of me bein' without my weepons, an' chases me up a tree. I ensconces myse'f in the crotch, an' when the b'ar starts to climb I hurls down ontrooth after ontrooth on top of him ontill, beneath a avalanche of falsehood, he's crushed dead at the base of the tree. Could I lie, you asks? Even folks who don't like me concedes that I'm the most irresist'ble liar south of the Ohio river.

"'While I'm upliftin' the feelin's of old Bender mendacious that a-way, he likes me; it's only when we gets to kyard-playin' he waxes sour. He's a master-hand to gamble, old Bender is, an' as shore as I shows up, followin' a lie or two, he's bound he'll play me seven-up for a crock of baldface whiskey. Now thar ain't a sport from the Knobs of old Knox to the Mississippi who could make seed corn off me at seven-up, an' nacherally I beats old Bender out of the baldface.