I'm awful glad to see yu-this yere
wart of a town needs siftin' out. It was only last week I was wishin'
one of yore bunch `ud show up-that ornament yu jest buffaloed shore
raised th' devil in here, an' I wished I had somebody to prospect his
anatomy for a lead mine. But he's got a tough gang circulating with
him. Ever hear of Dutch Shannon or Blinky Neary? They's with him."
"Dutch Shannon? Nope," he replied.
"Bad eggs, an' not a-carin' how they gits square. Th' feller yu'
salted yesterday was a bosom friend of th' marshal's, an' he passed in
his chips last night."
"So?"
"Yep. Bought a bottle of ready-made nerve an' went to his own
funeral. Aristotle Smith was lookin' fer him up in Cheyenne last year.
Aristotle said he'd give a century fer five minutes' palaver with him,
but he shied th' town an' didn't come back. Yu know Aristotle, don't
yu? He's th' geezer that made fame up to Poison Knob three years ago.
He used to go to town ridin' astride a log on th' lumber flume. Made
four miles in six minutes with th' promise of a ruction when he
stopped. Once when he was loaded he tried to ride back th' same way he
came, an' th' first thing he knowed he was three miles farther from
his supper an' a-slippin' down that valley like he wanted to go some-
where. He swum out at Potter's Dam an' it took him a day to walk back.
But he didn't make that play again, because he was
frequently sober, an' when he wasn't he'd only stand off an' swear at
th' slide.
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