“‘That’s a yoonique invention!” observes Cherokee, an’ he’s sarcastic while he menaces with the knife at Silver Phil; ’that contraption is shorely plenty sagacious!  But it don’t go here.  Shove in your chips.’  Silver Phil obeys:  an’ he shows furtive, ugly, an’ alarmed, an’ all of ’em at once.  He don’t say a word.  ‘Now pull your freight,’ concloods Cherokee.  ’If you ever drifts within ten foot of a game of mine ag’in I’ll throw this knife plumb through you—­through an’ through.’  An’ Cherokee, by way of lustration lets fly the knife across the bar-room.  It comes like a flash.

“‘Chuck!’

“Thar’s a picture paper pasted onto the wooden wall of the Red Light, displayin’ the liniaments of some party.  That bowie pierces the picture—­a shot in the cross it is—­an’ all with sech fervour that the p’int of the blade shows a inch an’ a half on the other side of that individyool board.

“‘The next time I throws a knife in your presence,’ remarks Cherokee to Silver Phil, an’ Cherokee’s as cold an’ p’isonous as a rattlesnake, ‘it’ll be la’nched at you.’

“Silver Phil don’t say nothin’ in retort.  He’s aware by the lib’ral way Cherokee sep’rates himse’f from the bowie that said weepon can’t constitoote Cherokee’s entire armament.  An’ as Silver Phil don’t pack the sperit to face no sech flashlight warrior, he acts on Cherokee’s hint to vamos, an fades into the street.  Shore, Cherokee don’t cash the felon’s chips none; he confiscates ’em.  Cherokee ain’t quite so tenderly romantic as to make good to a detected robber.  Moreover, he lets this Silver Phil go onharmed when by every roole his skelp is forfeit.  It turns out good for the camp, however, as this yere experience proves so depressin’ to Silver Phil he removes his blankets to Red Dog.  Thar among them purblind tarrapins, its inhabitants, it’s likely he gets prosperous an’ ondetected action on that little old ha’r copper of his.

“It’s not only my beliefs, but likewise the opinions of sech joodicial sports as Enright, Peets, an’ Colonel Sterett, that this maverick, Silver Phil, is all sorts of a crim’nal.  An’ I wouldn’t wonder if he’s a pure rustler that a-way; as ready to stand up a stage as snake a play at farobank.  This idee settles down on the Wolfville intell’gence on the heels of a vicissitoode wherein Dan Boggs performs, an’ which gets pulled off over in the Bird Cage Op’ry House.  Jack Moore ain’t thar none that time.  Usual, Jack is a constant deevotee of the dramy.  Jack’s not only a first-nighter, he comes mighty clost to bein’ a every-nighter.  But this partic’lar evenin’ when Boggs performs, Jack’s rummagin’ about some’ers else.

“If Jack’s thar, it’s even money he’d a-had that second shot instead of Boggs; in which event, the results might have been something graver than this yere minoote wound which Boggs confers.  I’m confident Jack would have cut in with the second shot for sech is his offishul system.  Jack more’n once proclaims his position.