" I
stops a minute ago an' asks him how he's stackin' up like, but it
ain't no use. He's plumb off his mental reservation, an' crazy as a
woman's watch.'
"'Whatever do you allow is the matter of him, Boggs?' asks Old Man
Enright.
"'Smallpox,' says Boggs, mighty confident.
"'Smallpox!' repeats Enright; 'be you shore?'
"'That's what I says,' answers Boggs; 'an' you can gamble my long
suit is pickin' out smallpox every time. I knows the signal smoke
like my own campfire.'
"'Well, see yere,' says Dave Tutt, who's come in, 'I jest now rounds
up them symptoms of this Yallerhouse gent; an' talkin' of smallpox,
I offers a hundred dollars even he ain't got no smallpox. Bein' out
solely for legit'mate sport,' continues Tutt, 'an' not aimin' to
offend Boggs none, I willin'ly calls it fifty to one hundred he
ain't got nothin'.'
"'Which I takes both bets,' says Boggs, 'an' deems 'em easy. Which
both is like robbin' a bird's-nest. Yere's the circ'latin' medium.
Thar; cover it an' file it away with the barkeep to wait results.'
So Tutt an' Boggs makes their bets mighty eager, an' the barkeep
holds the stakes.
"As soon as it gets blown through Wolfville this Yallerhouse party
has smallpox, everybody comes canterin' over to the Red Light, gets
a drink, an' wants to hold a mass meetin' over it.
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