It looks like they has but one hope, which it's to crawl into a
gent's blankets an' sleep some with him. Which, if he moves or turns
over, they simply emits a buzz an' grabs him I knows of forty folks
who's bit that a-way by snakes, an' nary a one lives to explain the
game.'
"'Be rattlesnakes thick in Arizona?' I hears Todd say to this
Jaybird.
"'Be they thick?' answers Jaybird. 'Well, I shore wishes I had
whiskey for all the rattlesnakes thar is yereabouts. I don't want to
go overstatin' the census to a gent who is out playin' for
information, an' who's learnin' fast, but I s'pose now thar ain't
none less than a billion snakes in southeast Arizona alone. If I
could saw off the little passel of cattle I has on this range, you
can gamble I'd pull my freight to-morrow. It's all right for sech
old Cimmarons as Enright, an' sech parties as that sawbones Peets,
to go bluffin' about thar' bein' no rattlesnakes to speak of, an'
that they couldn't p'ison you to death no how; but you bet I ain't
seen forty of my nearest friends cash in of snake-bites, an' not
learn nothin'. An' almost every time it's a rattlesnake as comes
slidin' into bed with 'em while they's locked in dreams, an' who
gets hot an' goes to chewin' of 'em, because they wants to turn out
before the snake does.
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