“‘Shore!’ says Dan, prompt to Nell’s cry.  ’I preevails on ’em to cease easy.’

“As Dan says this, that radiant cavalier is sweepin’ upon the pore chicken like the breath of destiny.  He’s bendin’ from the saddle to make a swoop as Dan speaks.  Thar ain’t a moment to lose an’ Dan’s hand goes to his gun.

“‘Watch me stop him,’ says Dan; an’ as he does, his bullet makes rags of the Mexican’s hand not a inch from the chicken’s head.

“For what time you-all might need to slop out a drink, the onlookin’ Mexicans stands still.  Then the stoopefyin’ impressions made by Dan’s pistol practice wears off an’ a howl goes up like a hundred wolves.  At this Dan gets his number-two gun to b’ar, an’ with one in each hand, confronts the tan-coloured multitoode.

“‘That’s shore a nice shot, Nell!’ says Dan over his shoulder, ropin’ for the congratoolations he thinks is comin.’

“But Nell don’t hear him; she’s one hundred yards away an’ streakin’ it for the Red Light like a shootin’ star.  She tumbles in on us with the brake off like a stage-coach downhill.

“‘Dan’s treed Chihuahua!’ gasps Nell, as she heads straight for Cherokee; ‘you-all better rustle over thar plumb soon!’

“Cherokee jumps an’ grabs his hardware where they’re layin’ onder the table.  Bein’ daylight an’ no game goin’, an’ the day some warm besides, he ain’t been wearin’ ’em, bein’ as you-all might say in negligee.  Cherokee buckles on his belts in a second an’ starts; the rest of us, however, since we’re more ackerately garbed, don’t lose no time an’ is already half way to Dan.

“It ain’t a two-minute run an’ we arrives in time.  Thar’s no more blood, though thar might have been, for we finds Dan frontin’ up to full two hundred Greasers, their numbers increasin’ and excitement runnin’ a heap high.  We cuts in between Dan an’ Mexican public opinion and extricates that over-vol’tile sport.

“But Dan won’t return ontil he exhoomes the chicken, which is still bobbin’ an’ twistin’ its onharmed head where the Mexican buries it.  Dan digs it up an’ takes it by the laigs; Enright meanwhile cussin’ him out, fervent an’ nervous, for he fears some locoed Greaser will cut loose every moment an’ mebby crease a gent, an’ so leave it incumbent on the rest of us to desolate Chihuahua.

“‘It’s for Nell,’ expostulates Dan, replyin’ to Enright’s criticisms.  ’I knows she wants it by the way she grabs my coat that time.  Moreover, from the tones she speaks in, I reckons she wants it alive.  Also, I don’t discern no excoose for this toomult neither; which you-all is shore the most peevish bunch, Enright, an’ that’s whatever!’

“‘Peevish or no,’ retorts Enright, ’as a jedge of warjigs I figgers that we gets here jest in time.  Thar you be, up ag’inst the entire tribe, an’ each one with a gun.  It’s one of the deefects of a Colt’s six-shooter that it hits as hard an’ shoots as troo for a Injun or a Greaser as it does for folks.  Talk about us bein’ peevish! what do you-all reckon would have been results if we hadn’t cut in on the baile at the time we does?’