Now go slow, or I'll
jest stretch a few of you for luck. It's sech consoomin' toil, a-
diggin' of sepulchers in this yere rock-ribbed landscape, or I'd do
it anyhow.'
"An' tharupon them rustlers, notin' Jack's got the drop on 'em,
kicks up a dense cloud of dust an is seen no more.
"But bein' replete with sand an' 'nitiative, that a-way, don't state
all thar is good of Jack. Let any pore, he'pless party cut Jack's
trail, an' he's plumb tender. On sech times Jack's a dove; leastwise
he's a dove a whole lot.
"One hot afternoon, Enright an' Doc Peets is away about some cattle
I reckons. Which the rest of us is noomerous enough; an' we're
sorter revolvin' 'round the post-office, a-waitin' for Old Monte an'
the stage. Yere she comes, final, a-rattlin' an' a-creakin'; that
old drunkard Monte a-poppin' of his whip, the six hosses on the
canter, an' the whole sheebang puttin' on more dog than a Mexican
officer of revenoo. When the stage draws up, Old Monte throws off
the mailbags an' the Wells-Fargo box, an' gets down an' opens the
door. But nobody emerges out.
"'Well, I'm a coyote! ' says Monte, a heap disgusted, `wherever is
the female?'
"Then we-alls peers into the stage an' thar's only a baby, with
mebby a ten-months' start down this vale of tears, inside; an' no
mother nor nothin' along.
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