"As I says, what I now relates is the only industrial trouble I recalls in Wolfville. I allers remembers it, 'cause, bein' as how I knows the party who's the aggravatin' cause tharof, it mortifies me the way he jumps into camp an' carries on.
"When I sees him first is ages before, when I freights with eight mules over the Old Fort Bascome trail from Vegas to the Panhandle. This sharp—which he's a tenderfoot at the time, but plumb wolf by nacher-trails up to me in the Early Rose Saloon in Vegas one day, an' allows he'd like to make a deal an' go projectin' over into the Panhandle country with me for a trip.
"Freightin' that a-way three weeks alone on the trail is some harrowin' to the sperits of a gent who loves company like me, so I agrees, an' no delay to it.
"Which I'm yere to mention I regrets later I'm that easy I takes this person along. Not that he turns hostile, but he's allers havin' adventures, an' things keeps happenin' to him; an' final, I thinks he's shorely dead an' gone complete—the same, as I afterward learns, bein' error; an', takin' it up one trail an' down another, that trip breaks me offen foolin' with shorthorns complete, an' I don't go near 'em for years, more'n if they's stingin' lizards.
"Whatever does this yere maverick do to me? Well, nothin' much to me personal; but he keeps a-breedin' of events which pesters me.
