"Bein' a reg'lar, reliable drunkard that a-way comes mighty near
bein' a disease. It ain't no question of nerve, neither. Some dead-
game gents I knows--an' who's that obstinate they wouldn't move camp
for a prairie-fire--couldn't pester a little bit with whiskey.
"Thar's my friend, Mace Bowman. Mace is clean strain cl'ar through,
an' yet I don't reckon he ever gets to a show-down with whiskey once
which he ain't outheld. But for grim nerve as'll never shiver, this
yere Bowman is at par every time.
"Bowman dies a prey to his ambition. He starts in once to drink all
the whiskey in Wolfville. By his partic'lar request most of the
white male people of the camp stands in on the deal, a-backin' his
play for to make Wolfville a dry camp. At the close of them two
lurid weeks Mace lasts, good jedges, like Enright an' Doc Peets,
allows he's shorely made it scarce some.
"But Wolfville's too big for him. Any other gent but Mace would have
roped at a smaller outfit, but that wouldn't be Mace nohow. If
thar's a bigger camp than Wolfville anywhere about, that's where
he'd been. He's mighty high-hearted an' ambitious that a-way, an'
it's kill a bull or nothin' when he lines out for buffalo.
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