“‘Doc,’ he says to Doc Peets, while he’s fillin’ a canteen in the Red Light prior to his start; ‘I won’t tell you what I’m aimin’ to accomplish, because the Stranglers might regyard it as their dooty to round me up.  But thar’s something comin’ to the public, Doc; so I yereby leaves word that next week, or next month, or mebby later, if doubts is expressed of my fate, I’m still flutterin’ about the scenery some’ers an’ am a long ways short of dead.  An’ as I fades from sight, Doc, I’ll take a chance an’ say that the clause in the Constitootion which allows that all gents is free an’ equal wasn’t meant to incloode no married man.’  An’ with these croode bluffs Rucker chases forth for the Floridas.

“No, the camp don’t do nothin’; the word gets passed ’round that old Rucker’s gone prospectin’ an’ that he will recur in our midst whenever thar’s a reg’lar roll-call.  As for Missis Rucker, personal, from all we can jedge by lookin’ on—­for thar’s shore none of us who’s that locoed we ups an’ asks—­I don’t reckon now she ever notices that Rucker’s escaped.

“Yere’s how it is the time when Faro Nell, her heart bleedin’ for the sufferin’s of dumb an’ he’pless brutes, employs Dan Boggs in errants of mercy an’ Dan’s efforts to do good gets ill-advised.  Not that Dan is easily brought so he regyards his play as erroneous; Enright has to rebooke Dan outright in set terms an’ assoome airs of severity before ever Dan allows he entertains a doubt.

“‘Suppose I does retire that Greaser’s hand from cirk’lation?’ says Dan, sort o’ dispootatious with Enright an’ Doc Peets, who’s both engaged in p’intin’ out Dan’s faults.  ’Mexicans ain’t got no more need for hands than squinch owls has for hymn books.  They won’t work; they never uses them members except for dealin’ monte or clawin’ a guitar.  I regyards a Mexican’s hands that a-way, when considered as feachers in his makeup, as sooperfluous.’

“‘Dan, you shore is the most perverse sport!’ says Enright, makin’ a gesture of impatience an’ at the same time refillin’ his glass in hopes of a ca’mer frame.  ’This ain’t so much a question of hands as it’s a question of taste.  Nell’s requests is right, an’ you’re bound to go about the rescoo of said chicken as the victim of crooelties.  Where you-all falls down is on a system.  The method you invokes is impertinent.  Don’t you say so, Doc?’

“‘Which I shore does,’ says Peets.  ’Dan’s conduct is absolootely oncouth.’

“Dan lays the basis for these strictures in the follow-in’ fashion:  It’s a fieste with the Mexicans—­one of the noomerous saint’s days they gives way to when every Greaser onbuckles an’ devotes himse’f to merriments—­an’ over in Chihuahua, as the Mexican part of the camp is called, the sunburnt portion of Wolfville’s pop’lation broadens into quite a time.  Thar’s hoss races an’ monte an’ mescal an’ pulque, together with roode music sech as may be wrung from primitive instruments like the guitar, the fiddle, an’ tin cans half filled with stones.