Go read your Scriptures; read
that bluff about feedin' the young ravens an' sparrers. Well, that's
me this trip. I'm goin' to rap for a show-down on them promises an'
see what's in 'em.'
"'This camp ain't strong on Holy Writ, nohow,' says Dave Tutt, 'an'
I'm partic'lar puny that a-way. It's your game though, an' your
American jedgement goes soopreme as to how you plays it.'
"This Wilkins lives in a wickeyup out on the aige of the town, an' a
girl, which she's his daughter, about 19 years old, keeps camp for
him. No one knows her well. She stays on her reservation mighty
close, an' never seems visible much. I notices her in the New York
Store once, buyin' some salt hoss, an'she ain't no dream of
loveliness neither as to looks.
"Her face makes you feel she's good people though, with her big soft
eyes. They has a tired, broke-down look, like somehow she's been
packed more'n she can carry, an' has two or three notions about
layin' down with the load.
"It's mebby two weeks after Dave Tutt's talk with Wilkins, when
we're all in the Red Light takin' our forty drops, an' Sam Enright
brings up this yere Wilkins.
"'It has been a question with me,' he says, 'how this old shorthorn
and his girl manages for to make out; an' while I care none whatever
for Wilkins, it ain't no credit to a live camp like this to permit a
young female to suffer, an' I pauses yere to add, it ain't goin' to
occur no more.
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