'
"`Who lose to it?' asks Dan Boggs.
"'Why,' says Cherokee, 'it's every time that old longhorn as comes
in from Tucson back some two weeks ago.'
"'That settles it,' says Boggs, mighty decided. 'You can bet your
saddle an' throw the pony in, Death is fixin' his sights for him
right now. It's shorely a warnin', an' I'm plumb glad it ain't none
of the boys; that's all.'
"You see this yere stranger who Cherokee alloods at comes over from
Tucson a little while before. He has long white ha'r an' beard, an',
jedgin' from the rings on his horns, he's mebby a-comin' sixty. He
seems like he's plenty of money, an' we takes it he's all right. His
leavin' Tucson shows he has sense, so we cashes him in at his
figger. Of course we-alls never asks his name none, as askin' names
an' lookin' at the brands on a pony is speshul roode in the West,
an' shows your bringin' up; but he allows he's called 'Old Bill
Gentry ' to the boys, an' he an' Faro Nell's partic'lar friendly.
"'Talkin' to him,' says Nell, ' is like layin' in the shade. He
knows everythin', too; all about books an' things all over the
world. He was a-tellin' me, too, as how he had a daughter like me
that died 'way back some'ers about when I was a yearlin'.
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