“‘"An’ why not?” says Yuba.  “I’ve shore took all the skelps that’s comin’ to me; an’ as for you-all, you’re young an’ my counsel is to never begin.  That pooerile spat we has don’t count.  I’m drinkin’ at the time, an’ I don’t reckon now you attaches importance to what a gent says when he’s in licker?”

“’"Not to what he says,” I replies; “but I does to what he shoots.  I looks with gravity on the gun-plays of any gent, an’ the drunker he is the more ser’ous I regyards the eepisode.”

“‘"Well, she’s a thing of the past now,” explains Yuba, “an’ this evenin’ you’re as pop’lar with me as a demijohn at a camp-meetin’.”

“‘Both our bosoms so wells with joy, settin’ thar as we do in a atmosphere of onexpected yet perfect fraternalism an’ complete peace, that Yuba an’ me drinks a whole lot.  It gets so, final, I refooses to return to my own camp; I won’t be sep’rated from Yuba.  When we can no longer drink, we turns in at Yuba’s wickeyup an’ sleeps.  The next mornin’ we picks up the work of reeconciliation where it slips from our tired hands the evenin’ before.  I does intend to reepair to my camp when we rolls out; but after the third conj’int drink both me an’ Yuba sees so many reasons why it’s a fool play I gives up the idee utter.

“‘Gents, it’s no avail to pursoo me an’ Yuba throughout them four feverish days.  We drifts from one drink-shop to the other, arm in arm, as peaceful an’ pleased a pair of sots as ever disturbs the better element.  Which we’re the scandal of Tucson; we-all is that thickly amiable it’s a insult to other men.  Thus ends my first dooel; a conflict as bloodless as she is victorious.  How long it would have took me an’ Yuba to thoroughly cement our friendships will never be known.  At the finish, we-all is torn asunder by the Tucson marshal an’ I’m returned to my camp onder gyard.  Me an’ Yuba before nor since never does wax that friendly with any other gent; we’d be like brothers yet, only the Stranglers over to Shakespear seizes on pore Yuba one mornin’ about a hoss an’ heads him for his home on high.’”

CHAPTER XIV.

The Troubles of Dan Boggs.

“This yere,” remarked the Old Cattleman, at the heel of a half-hour lecture on life and its philosophy, “this yere is a evenin’ when they gets to discussin’ about luck.  It’s doorin’ the progress of this dispoote when Cherokee Hall allows that luck don’t alternate none, first good an’ then bad, but travels in bunches like cattle or in flocks like birds.  ‘Whichever way she comes,’ says Cherokee, ’good or bad, luck avalanches itse’f on a gent.  That’s straight!’ goes on Cherokee.  ‘You bet!  I speaks from a voloominous experience an’ a life that, whether up or down, white or black, ain’t been nothin’ but luck.  Which nacherally, bein’ a kyard sharp that a-way, I studies luck the same as Peets yere studies drugs; an’ my discov’ries teaches that luck is plumb gregar’ous.  Like misery in that proverb, luck loves company; it shore despises to be lonesome.’