“Peets when the sun comes up enjoys himse’f speshul with the opp’ration.  Peets is fond of ampytations, that a-way, and he lops off said limb with zest an’ gusto.

“‘I shore deplores, Jose,’ says Peets, ‘to go shortenin’ up a fellow scientist like this.  But thar’s no he’pin’ it; fate has so decreed.  Also, as some comfort to your soul, I’ll explain to Sam Enright how you won’t ride much when I gets you fairly trimmed.  Leastwise, after I’m done prunin’ you, thar won’t be nothin’ but these yere woman’s saddles that you’ll fit, an’ no gent, be he white or be he Greaser, can work cattle from a side-saddle.’  An’ Peets, hummin’ a roundelay, cuts merrily into the wounded member.”

CHAPTER XI.

Tucson Jennie’s Correction.

“Doc Peets, son,” said the Old Cattleman, while his face wore the look of decent gravity it ever donned when that man of medicine was named, “Doc Peets has his several uses.  Aside from him bein’ a profound sharp on drugs, an’ partic’lar cowboy drugs, he’s plenty learned in a gen’ral way, an’ knows where every kyard lays in nacher’s deck, from them star-flecked heavens above to the earth beneath, an’—­as Scripter puts it—­to the ‘waters onder the earth.’  It’s a good scheme to have a brace of highly eddicated gents, same as Colonel Sterett an’ Doc Peets, sort o’ idlin’ ’round your camp.  Thar’s times when a scientist, or say, a lit’rary sport comes bluffin’ into Wolfville; an’ sech folks is a mighty sight too deep for Boggs an’ me an’ Tutt.  If we’re left plumb alone with a band of them book-read shorthorns like I deescribes, you-all sees yourse’f, they’re bound to go spraddlin’ East ag’in, an’ report how darkened Wolfville is.  But not after they locks horns with Doc Peets or Colonel Sterett.  Wherefore, whenever the camp’s invaded by any over-enlightened people who’s gone too far in schools for the rest of us to break even with, we ups an’ plays Doc Peets or Colonel Sterett onto ’em; an’ the way either of them gents would turn in an’ tangle said visitors up mental don’t bother ’em a bit.  That’s straight; Peets an’ the Colonel is our refooge; they’re our protectors; an’ many a time an’ oft, have I beheld ’em lay for some vain-glorious savant who’s got a notion the Southwest, that a-way, is a region of savagery where the folks can’t even read an’ write none, an’ they’d rope, throw, an’ hawgtie him—­verbal, I means—­an’ brand his mem’ry with the red-hot fact that he’s wrong an’ been wadin’ in error up to the saddle-girths touchin’ the intellectooal attainments of good old Arizona.  Shore,—­Doc Peets has other uses than drugs, an’ he discharges ’em.