"'Sech observations,' observes Tutt, to whom Boggs vouchsafes this information, 'sech observations make me tired.They displays the onlimited ability for ignorance of the hooman mind.Boggs, I don't want to be deemed insultin', but you-all oughter go to night-school some'ers ontil you learns the roodiments of the American language.""When this yore colloquy ensooes, I'm away on the spring round-up, an' tharfor not present tharat; but as good a jedge as Jack Moore, insists that the remainder of the conversation would have come off in the smoke if he hadn't, in his capacity of marshal, pulled his six-shooter an' invoked Boggs an' Tutt to a ca'mer mood.
"But speakin' of this Huggins party, I never likes him.Aside from his bein' mostly drunk, which, no matter what some may say or think, I holds impairs a gent's valyoo as a social factor, Huggins is avaricious an' dotes on money to the p'int of bein' sordid.He'd gloat over a dollar like it was a charlotte roose, Huggins would.
So, as I says, I ain't fond of Huggins, an' takes no more pleasure of his company than if he's a wet dog.Still, thar's sech a thing as dooty; so, when Huggins comes wanderin' wild-eyed into the Red Light about first drink time one evenin', an' confides to me in a whisper that thar's a jack rabbit outside which has sworn to take his life, an' is right then bushwhackin' about the door waitin' to execoote the threat, I calls Doc Peets, an' aids in tyin' Huggins down so that his visions can be met an' coped with medical.
"Peets rides herd on Huggins for about a week, an' at last effects his rescoo from that hostile jack rabbit an' them crimson rattlesnakes an' blue-winged bats that has j'ined dogs with it in its attempts ag'in Huggins.Later, when Peets sends his charges, this yere ingrate Huggins--lovin' money as I states--wants to squar'
it with a quart or two of whiskey checks on the Bird Cage bar.
Nacherally, Peets waves aside sech ignoble proffers as insults to his professional standin'.
"'An' you all don't owe me a splinter, Huggins,' says Peets, as he turns down the prop'sition to take whiskey checks as his reward.
'We'll jest call them services of mine in subdooin' your delirium treemors a contreebution.It should shorely be remooneration enough to know that I've preserved you to the Wolfville public, an' that the camp can still boast the possession of the meanest sport an'
profoundest drunkard outside of the Texas Panhandle.'
"Bar none, Doc Peets is the bitterest gent, verbal, that ever makes a moccasin track in the South-west.An' while Huggins ain't pleased none, them strictures has to go.To take to pawin' 'round for turmoil with Peets would be encroachin' onto the ediotic.Even if he emerges alive from sech controversies--an' it's four to one he wouldn't; for Peets, who's allers framed up with a brace of derringers, is about as vivid an enterprise as Wolfville affords--the Stranglers would convene with Old Man Enright in the cha'r, an'
Huggins wouldn't last as long as a drink of whiskey.As it is, Huggins gulps his feelin's an' offers nothin' in return to Peets's remarks.
"No; of course Doc Peets ain't that diffusive in his confidences as to go surgin' about tellin' this story to every gent he meets.It's ag'in roole for physicians that a-way to go draggin' their lariats 'round permiscus an' impartin' all they knows.You-all can see yourse'f that if physicians is that ingenuous, it would prodooce all sorts of troubles in the most onlooked-for places an' most onexpected forms.No; Peets wouldn't give way to conduct so onbecomin' a medicine man an' a sport.But rooles has their exceptions; an so Feets, in one of them moments of sympathy an'
confidence, which two highly eddicated gents after the eighth drink is bound to feel for each other, relates to Colonel Sterett concernin' Huggins an' his perfidy with them Bird Cage checks.
"This yere onbosomin' of himse'f to the Colonel ain't none discreet of Peets.The Colonel has many excellencies, but keepin' secrets ain't among 'em; none whatever.The Colonel is deevoid of talents for secrets, an' so the next day he prints this yere outrage onder a derisive headline touchin' Huggins' froogality.
"Huggins don't grade over-high for nerve an' is a long way from bein' clean strain game; but he figgers, so I allers reckons, that the Colonel ain't no thunderbolt of war himse'f, so when he reads as to him an' Peets an' them treemors an' the whiskey checks, he starts in to drink an' discuss about his honor, an' gives it out he'll have revenge.
"It's the barkeep at the Red Light posts Colonel Sterett as to them perils.A Mexican comes trackin' along into the Colonel's room in the second story--what he calls his 'sanctum'--with a note.It's from the barkeep an' reads like this:
RED LIGHT SALOON.
DEAR COLONEL:--
Huggins is in here tankin' up an' makin' war medicine.He's packin'
two guns.He says he's going to plug you for that piece.I can keep him here an hour.Meanwhile, heel yourse'f.I'll have him so drunk by the time he leaves that he ought to be easy.
Yours sincerely, BLACK JACK.
P.S.Better send over to the Express Company for one of them shot-guns.Buckshot, that a-way, is a cinch; an' if you're a leetle nervous it don't make no difference.B.J.
"About the time the 10-gauge comes over to the Colonel, with the compliments of the Wells-Fargo Express, an' twenty shells holdin'
twenty-one buck-shot to the shell, Doc Peets himse'f comes sa'nterin' into the sanctum.
"'You-all ought never to have printed it, Colonel,' says Peets; 'I'm plumb chagrined over that exposure of Huggins.'
"'Don't you reckon, Doc,' says the Colonel, sort o' coaxin' the play, 'if you was to go down to the Red Light an' say to this inebriated miscreant that you makes good, it would steady him down a whole lot?'
"'If I was to take sech steps as you urges, Colonel,' says Peets, 'it would come out how I gives away the secrets of my patients; it would hurt my p'sition.On the level! Colonel, I'd a mighty sight sooner you'd beef Huggins.'
