The rest of us don't crowd 'round none to
watch the play, don't hover over it that a-way, 'cause we ain't
aimin' to acquire nothin' ourse'fs.
"Jack has a heap of trouble an' worry. Never sees no smallpox do
you? Folks locoed most usual,--clean off up in the air an' pitchin'
on their ropes. Of course the Yallerhouse gent has all he needs.
That rake on tens-up them days would have took care of a fam'ly. But
he keeps Jack herdin' him all the time. Otherwise, not bein'
watched, an' crazy that a-way, he's liable to come stampedin' over
to the Red Light, or some'ers else, any time, an' skeer us up some.
"'He's a world-beater,' says Jack one day, when he comes over for a
drink. 'He's shorely four kings an' an ace. You can't ride him with
buckin'-straps an' a Spanish bit. It's got so now--his disease bein'
at a crisis like--that I simply has to be with this Yallerhouse
party day an' night. He'd shorely lay waste this camp if I didn't.'
"At last the Yallerhouse party an' Jack somehow beats the smallpox,
but Yallerhouse comes out shy an eye. The smallpox gouges it out one
of them times when Jack ain't lookin' out his game sharp. It's his
pistol eye, too; which makes him feel the loss more keen, an'
creates general sympathy.
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