"Thar's a passel of us prowlin' 'round in the Red Light one day,
when along comes Enright. He's got a paper in his hand, an' from the
air he assooms it's shore plain he's on the brink of somethin'.
"'What I'm thinkin' of, gents, is this,' says Enright, final. 'I
observes to-morrow to be Thanksgivin' by this yere paper Old Monte
packs in from Tucson. The Great Father sets to-morrow for a national
blow-out, a-puttin' of it in his message on the broad ground that
everybody's lucky who escapes death. Now, the question is, be we in
this? an' if so, what form the saturnalia takes?'
What's the matter of us hoppin' over an' shootin' up Red Dog?" says
Dan Boggs. 'That bunch of tarrapins ain't been shook up none for
three months.'
"'Technical speakin',' says Doc Peets--which Peets, he shorely is
the longest-headed sharp I ever sees, an' the galiest--'shootin' up
Red Dog, while it's all right as a prop'sition an' highly creditable
to Boggs, is not a Thanksgivin' play. The game, turned strict,
confines itse'f to eatin', drinkin', an' lyin'.'
"'Thar's plenty of whiskey in camp,' says Jack Moore, meditative-
like, 'whereby that drinkin' part comes easy.'
"'I assooms it's the will of all to pull off a proper Thanksgivin'
caper,' says Enright, 'an' tharfore I su'gests that Doc Peets and
Boggs waits on Missis Rucker at the O.
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