Which this yere tale is mighty devious, not to say disjointed, because, d’you see! from first to last, she’s all the truth. Now, thar is folks sech as Injuns an’ them sagacious sports which we-all terms philosophers, who talks of truth bein’ straight. Injuns will say a liar has a forked tongue, while philosophers will speak of a straight ondeviatin’ narrative, meanin’ tharby to indooce you to regyard said story as the emanation of honesty in its every word. For myse’f I don’t subscribe none to these yere phrases. In my own experience it’s the lies that runs in a straight line like a bullet, whereas the truth goes onder an’ over, an’ up an’ down, doubles an’ jumps sideways a dozen times before ever it finally finds its camp in what book-sharps call the “climax.” Which I says ag’in that this tale, bein’ troo, has nacherally as many kinks in it as a new lariat.

Bein’ thoughtful that a-way, an’ preyed on by a desire to back-track every fact to its fountain-head, meanwhile considerin’ how different the kyards would have fallen final if something prior had been done or left on done, has ever been my weakness. It’s allers so with me. I can recall as a child how back in Tennessee I deevotes hours when fish-in’ or otherwise uselessly engaged, to wonderin’ whoever I’d have been personal if my maw had died in her girlhood an’ pap had wedded someone else. It’s plumb too many for me; an’ now an’ then when in a sperit of onusual cog’tation, I ups an’ wonders where I’d be if both my maw an’ pap had cashed in as colts, I’d jest simply set down he’pless, on-qualified to think at all. It’s plain that in sech on-toward events as my two parents dyin’, say, at the age of three, I sort o’ wouldn’t have happened none. This yere solemn view never fails to give me the horrors.

I fixes the time of this story easy as bein’ that eepock when Jim East an’ Bob Pierce is sheriffs of the Panhandle, with headquarters in Tascosa, an’ Bob Roberson is chief of the LIT ranch. These yere evidences of merit on the parts of them three gents has not, however, anything to do with how Cold-sober Simms gets rich at farobank; how two hold-ups plots to rob him; how he’s saved by the inadvertent capture of a bob-cat who’s strange to him entire; an’ how the two hold-ups in their chagrin over Cold-sober’s escape an’ the mootual doubts it engenders, pulls on each other an’ relieves the Stranglers from the labor of stringin’ ’em to a cottonwood.

These doin’s whereof I gives you a rapid rehearsal, has their start when Old Scotty an’ Locoed Charlie gets drunk in Tascosa prior to startin’ west on their buckboard with the mailbags of the Lee-Scott ranch. Locoed Charlie an’ Old Scotty is drunk when they pulls out; Cold-sober Simms is with ’em as a passenger. At their night camp half way to the Lee-Scott, Locoed Charlie, whose head can’t stand the strain of Jenkins’ nose-paint, makes war-medicine an’ lays for Old Scotty all spraddled out. As the upcome of these yere hostilities, Old Scotty confers a most elab’rate beatin’ on Locoed Charlie; after which they-all cooks their grub, feeds, an’ goes to sleep.

But Locoed Charlie don’t go to sleep; he lays thar drunk an’ disgruntled an’ hungerin’ to play even. As a good revengeful scheme, Locoed Charlie allows he’ll get up an’ secrete the mailbag, thinkin’ tharby to worry Old Scotty till he sweats blood. Locoed Charlie packs the mailbag over among some rocks which is thick grown with cedar bresh. When it comes sun-up an’ Locoed Charlie is sober an’ repents, an’ tells Old Scotty of his little game, neither he nor Scotty can find that mailbag nohow. Locoed Charlie shore hides her good.

Locoed Charlie an’ Scotty don’t dare go on without it, but stays an’ searches; Cold-sober Simms—who is given this yere nom-de-guerre, as Colonel Sterett terms it, because he’s the only sport in the Panhandle who don’t drink—stays with ’em to help on the hunt. At last, failin’ utter to discover the missin’ mail, Locoed Charlie an’ Old Scotty returns to Tascosa in fear an’ tremblin’, not packin’ the nerve to face McAllister, who manages for the Lee-Scott, an’ inform him of the yoonique disposition they makes of his outfit’s letters. This return to Tascosa is, after all, mere proodence, since McAllister is a mighty emotional manager, that a-way, an’ it’s as good as even money he hangs both of them culprits in that first gust of enthoosiasm which would be shore to follow any explanation they can make. So they returns; an’ because he can’t he’p himse’f none, bein’ he’s only a passenger on that buckboard, Cold-sober Simms returns with ’em. No, the mailbag is found a week later by a Lee-Scott rider, an’ for the standin’ of Locoed Charlie an’ Scotty it’s as well he does.

Cold-sober is some sore at bein’ baffled in his trip to the Lee-Scott since he aims to go to work thar as a rider. To console himse’f, he turns in an’ bucks a faro game that a brace of onknown black-laigs who shows in Tascosa from Fort Elliot the day prior, has onfurled in James’ s’loon. As sometimes happens, Cold-sober plays in all brands an’ y’earmarks of luck, an’ in four hours breaks the bank. It ain’t overstrong, no sech institootion of finance in fact as Cherokee Hall’s faro game in Wolfville, an’ when Cold-sober calls the last nine-king turn for one hundred, an’ has besides a hundred on the nine, coppered, an’ another hundred open on the king, tharby reapin’ six hundred dollars as the froots of said feat, the sharp who’s deal-in’ turns up his box an’ tells Cold-sober to set in his chips to be cashed. Cold-sober sets ’em in; nine thousand five hundred dollars bein’ the roundup, an’ the dealer-sharp hands over the dinero. Then in a sperit of resentment the dealer-sharp picks up the faro-box an’ smashes it ag’in the wall.

“Thar bein’ nothin’ left,” he says to his fellow black-laig, who’s settin’ in the look-out’s chair, “for you an’ me but to prance out an’ stand up a stage, we may as well dismiss that deal-box from our affairs. I knowed that box was a hoodoo ever since Black Morgan gets killed over it in Mobeetie; an’ so I tells you, but you-all wouldn’t heed.”

Cold-sober is shore elated about his luck; them nine thousand odd dollars is more wealth than he ever sees; an’ how to dispose of it, now he’s got it, begins to bother Cold-sober a heap. One gent says, “Hive it in Howard’s Store!” another su’gests he leave it with old man Cohn; while still others agrees it’s Cold-sober’s dooty to blow it in.

“Which if I was you-all,” says Johnny Cook of the LIT outfit, “I’d shore sally forth an’ buy nose-paint with that treasure while a peso remained.” But Cold-sober turns down these divers proposals an’ allows he’ll pack said roll in his pocket a whole lot, which he accordin’ does.

Cold-sober hangs ’round Tascosa for mighty near a week, surrenderin’ all thought of gettin’ to the Lee-Scott ranch, feelin’ that he’s now too rich to punch cattle. Doorin’ this season of idleness art’ease, Cold-sober bunks in with a jimcrow English doctor who’s got a ’doby in Tascosa an’ who calls himse’f Chepp. He’s a decent form of maverick, however, this yere Chepp, an’ him an’ Cold-sober becomes as thick as thieves.

Cold-sober’s stay with Chepp is brief as I states; in a week he gets restless ag’in for work; whereupon he hooks up with Roberson, an’ goes p’intin’ south across the Canadian on a L I T hoss to hold down one of that brand’s sign-camps in Mitchell’s canyon. It’s only twenty miles, an’ lie’s thar in half a day—him an’ Wat Peacock who’s to be his mate. An’ Cold-sober packs with him that fortune of ninety-five hundred.

The two black-laigs who’s been depleted that away still hankers about Tascosa; but as mighty likely they don’t own the riches to take ’em out o’ town, not much is thought. Nor does it ruffle the feathers of commoonal suspicion when the two disappears a few days after Cold-sober goes ridin’ away to assoome them LIT reesponsibilities in Mitchell’s canyon. The public is too busy to bother itse’f about ’em. It comes out later, however, that the goin’ of Cold-sober has everything to do with the exodus of them hold-ups, an’ that they’ve been layin’ about since they loses their roll on a chance of get-tin’ it back. When Cold-sober p’ints south for Mitchell’s that time, it’s as good as these outlaws asks. They figgers on trailin’ him to Mitchell’s an’ hidin’ out ontil some hour when Peacock’s off foolin’ about the range; when they argues Cold-sober would be plumb easy, an’ they’ll kill an’ skelp him an’ clean him up for his money, an’ ride away.

“In fact,” explains the one Cold-sober an’ Peacock finds alive, “it’s our idee that the killin’ an’ skelpin’ an’ pillagin’ of Cold-sober would get layed to Peacock, which would mean safety for us an’ at the same time be a jest on Peacock that would be plumb hard to beat.” That was the plan of these outlaws; an’ the cause of its failure is the followin’ episode, to wit:

It looks like this Doc Chepp is locoed to collect wild anamiles that a-way.

“Which I wants,” says this shorthorn Chepp, “a speciment of every sort o’ the fauna of these yere regions, savin’ an’ exceptin’ polecats. I knows enough of the latter pungent beast from an encounter I has with one, to form notions ag’in ’em over which not even the anxious cry of science can preevail. Polecats is barred from my c’llec-tions. But,” an’ said Chepp imparts this last to Cold-sober as the latter starts for Mitchell’s, “if by any sleight or dexterity you-all accomplishes the capture of a bob-cat, bring the interestin’ creature to me at once. An’ bring him alive so I may observe an’ note his pecooliar traits.”

It’s the third mornin’ in Mitchell’s when a bobcat is seen by Cold-sober an’ Peacock to go sa’nter-in’ up the valley. Mebby this yere bob-cat’s homeless; mebby he’s a dissoloote bob-cat an’ has been out all night carousin’ with other bob-cats an’ is simply late gettin’ in; be the reason of his appearance what it may, Cold-sober remembers about Doc Chepp’s wish to own a bob-cat, an’ him an’ Peacock lets go all holds, leaps for their ponies an’ gives chase. Thar’s a scramblin’ run up the canyon; then Peacock gets his rope onto it, an’ next Cold-sober fastens with his rope, an’ you hear me, gents, between ’em they almost rends this yere onhappy bobcat in two. They pauses in time, however, an’ after a fearful struggle they succeeds in stuffin’ the bob-cat into Peacock’s leather laiggin’s, which the latter gent removes for that purpose. Bound hand an’ foot, an’ wropped in the laiggin’s so tight he can hardly squawl, that bob-cat’s put before Cold-sober on his saddle; an’ this bein’ fixed, Cold-sober heads for Tascosa to present him to his naturalist friend, Chepp, Peacock scamperin’ cheerfully along like a drunkard to a barbecue regyardin’ the racket as a ondeniable excuse for gettin’ soaked.

This adventure of the bob-cat is the savin’ clause in the case of Cold-sober Simms. As the bobcat an’ him an’ Peacock rides away, them two malefactors is camped not five miles off, over by the Serrita la Cruz, an’ arrangin’ to go projectin’ ’round for Cold-sober an’ his ninety-five hundred that very evenin’. In truth, they execootes their scheme; but only to find when they jumps his camp in Mitchell’s that Cold-sober’s done vamosed a whole lot.

It’s then trouble begins to gather for the two rustlers. The one who deals the game that time is so overcome by Cold-sober’s absence, he peevishly puts it up that his pard gives Cold-sober warnin’ with the idee of later whackin’ up the roll with him by way of a reward for his virchoo. Nacherally no se’f-respectin’ miscreant will submit to sech impeachments, an’ the accoosed makes a heated retort, punctuatin’ his observations with his gun. Thar-upon the other proceeds to voice his feelin’s with his six-shooter; an’ the mootual remarks of these yere dispootants is so well aimed an’ ackerate that next evenin’ when Cold-sober an’ Peacock returns, they finds one dead an’ t’other dyin’ with even an’ exact jestice broodin’ over all.

As Cold-sober an’ Peacock is settin’ by their fire that night, restin’ from their labors in plantin’ the two hold-ups, Cold-sober starts up sudden an’ says:

“Yereafter I adopts a bob-cat for my coat-o’-arms. Also, I changes my mind about Howard, an’ to-morry I’ll go chargin’ into Tascosa an’ leave said ninety-five hundred in his iron box. Thar’s more ‘bad men’ at Fort Elliot than them two we plants, an’ mebby some more of ’em may come a-weavin’ up the Canadian with me an’ my wealth as their objective p’int.”

Peacock endorses the notion enthoosiastic, an’ declar’s himse’f in on the play as a body-guard; for he sees in this yere second expedition a new o’casion for another drunk, an’ Peacock jest nacherally dotes on a debauch.

“And what did your Cold-sober Simms,” asked the Sour Gentleman, “finally do with his money? Did he go into the cattle business?”

“Never buys a hoof,” returned the Old Cattleman. “No, indeed; he loses it ag’in monte in Kelly’s s’loon in Dodge. Charley Bassett who’s marshal at the time tries to git Cold-sober to pass up that monte game. But thar ain’t no headin’ him; he would buck it, an’ so the sharp who’s deal-in’, Butcher Knife Bill it is—turns in an’ knocks Cold-sober’s horns plumb off.”

The sudden collapse of the volatile Cold-sober’s fortunes was quite a dampener to the Sour Gentleman; he evidently entertained a hope that the lucky cow-boy was fated to a rise in life. The news of his final losses had less effect on the Red Nosed Gentleman who, having witnessed no little gambling in his earlier years, seemed better prepared. In truth, a remark he let fall would show as much.

“I was sure he would lose it,” said the Red Nosed Gentleman. “Men win money only to lose it to the first game they can find. However, to change the subject:” Here the Red Nosed Gentleman beamed upon the Jolly Doctor. “Sir, the hour is young. Can’t you aid us to finish the evening with another story?”

“There is one I might give you,” responded the Jolly Doctor. “It is of a horse-race like that Rescue of Connelly you related and was told me by an old friend and patient who I fear was a trifle wild as a youth. This is the story as set forth by himself, and for want of a more impressive title, we may call it ‘How Prince Rupert Lost.’”