I has only time to make camp, saddle up,
an' line out of thar, to keep from bein' burned before my time.
"'This yere fire rages for two months, an' burns up a billion
dollars worth of mountains, I'm a coyote if some folks don't talk of
lawin' me about it.'
"'That's a yarn which has the year-marks of trooth, but all the same
it's deer as saves my life once,' says Doc Peets, sorter trailin' in
innocent-like when this Lyin' Jim gets through; 'leastwise their
meat saves it. I'm out huntin' same as you is, this time to which I
alloods.
"'I'm camped on upper Red River; up where the river is only about
twelve feet wide. It ain't deep none, only a few inches, but it's
dug its banks down about four feet. The river runs along the center
of a mile-wide valley, which they ain't no trees in it, but all
cl'ar an' open. It's snowin' powerful hard one, evenin' about 3
o'clock when I comes back along the ridge towards my camp onder the
pines. While I'm ridin' along I crosses the trail of nineteen deer.
I takes it too quick, 'cause I needs deer in my business, an' I
knows these is close or their tracks would be covered, the way it
snows.
"'I runs the trail out into the open, headin' for the other ridge.
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