It was
just a loco prejudice. Just as some gesabes has feelin's agin cats an'
snakes, or agin seein' a speckled nigger. It was just on-reasonable. So
what I'm aimin' to have you understand is the fact that it was extremely
appropriate that Peg-leg should die, that it was a blame good thing, and
somethin' to be celebrated by free drinks all round.
"You can say he treated me white, an' took my unsupported word. Well, so
he did; but that was in spite o' what he really was hisself, 'way on the
inside o' him. Inside o' him he was black-bad, an' it wa'n't a week
after we had made our bargint that he did for a little Mojave kid in a
way I don't like to think of.
"So when he took an' died like as how I'm a-going to tell you of, I was
plumb joyful, not only because I could feel at liberty to relieve my
mind when necessary in a manner as is approved of and rightful among
gents--not only because o' that, but because they was one less bad egg
in the cow-country.
"Now the manner o' Peg-leg's dying was sure hilarious-like. I didn't git
over laughin' about it for a month o' Sundays--an' I ain't done yet. It
was sure a joke on Peg-leg. The cutest joke that ever was played off on
him.
"It was in Sonora--Sonora, Arizona, I mean. They'd a-been a kind o' gold
excitement there, and all the boys had rounded up. The town was
full--chock-a-block. Peg-leg he was there too, drunk all the time an'
bullyin' everybody, an' slambangin' around in his same old way.
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