“Hum!  That’s just about how tall my first husband was.  You look some like him in the face, too.  Say, he was the fightin’est man in Pike.  How come him to get killed was a diffikilty with his brother-in-law, a Dutchman that kept a saloon and couldn’t talk English.  Jim, he went in there to get a bite to eat and asked this Dutchman what he could set up.  Paul—­that was the Dutchman’s name—­he says, ’Well, we got dawg—­mallard dawg, and red head dawg, and canvas back dawg—­what’s the kind of dawg you like, Chim?’

“My husband thought he was pokin’ fun at him, talkin’ about eatin’ dawg—­not knowin’ the Dutchman was tryin’ to say ‘duck,’ and couldn’t.  ‘I might have a piece of duck,’ said Jim, ‘bit I ain’t eatin’ no dawg.’

“‘I said dawg,’ says Paul, still a-tryin’ to say ‘duck.’

“‘I know you did,’ says Jim, and then they clinched.  Jim He broke his knife off, and the Dutchman soaked him with a beer mallet.  ‘But Mandy,’ says Jim to me, jest before he shet his eyes, ’I die content.  That there fellow was the sweetest cuttin’ man I ever did cut in all my life—­he was jest like a ripe pumpkin.’  Say, there was a man for you, was Jim—­you look some like him.”  She dipped snuff again vigorously.

“You compliment me very much, Mrs. McGovern,” I said.

“Say,” she responded, “I got two thousand head o’ hawgs runnin’ around in the timber down there in Pike.”

At the moment I did not see the veiled tenderness of this speech, but thought of nothing better than to tell her that I was going no further up the river than Fort Leavenworth.

“Um-hum!” she said.  “Say, mister, mebbe that’s yore wife back there in the kebbin in the middle of the boat?”

“No, indeed.  In fact I did not know there was any other lady on the boat besides yourself.  I am not much interested in young ladies, as it happens.”

“You lie,” said Mrs. McGovern promptly, “there ain’t nothin’ in the whole world you are ez much interested in as young wimmin.  I’m a merried woman, and I know the signs.  If I had a deevorce I might be a leetle jealous o’ that gal in there.  She’s the best lookin’ gal I ever did see in all my time.  If I was merried to you I dunno but I’d be a leetle bit jealous o’ you.  Say, I may be a widder almost any day now.  Somebody’ll shore kill Danny Calkins ’fore long.”

“And, according to you, I may be a married man almost any day,” I replied, smiling.

“But you ain’t merried yit.”

“No, not yet,” I answered.

“Well, if you git a chanct you take a look at that gal back there in the kebbin.”