Page:AH Lewis--Wolfville.djvu/231

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Slim Jim's Sister.
195

Jim shakes; 'an' I yereby marks your moccasins plumb off my list of targets.'

"Everybody's pleased at this; an' the barkeep is delighted speshul, as one of them reeconciliations that a-way is mighty condoosive to the sale of nose-paint. I'm yere to remark, if thar ain't no more reeconciliations on earth, an' everybody stands pat on them hatreds an' enmities of his, whiskey-drinkin' falls off half.

"I only su'gest this turn-up with Curly Bill to 'lustrate that it's about as I says, an' that while Slim Jim's reluctant an' hesitatin' in the presence of wild steers, an' can't adhere to a pony much, this yere girlishness don't extend to men none; which last he faces prompt an' willin' as a lion.

"Thar's times when I shorely ponders the case of this Slim Jim a mighty sight, 'cause he keeps strikin' me as a good gent gone bad, an' as bein' the right gent in the wrong place.

"'This pore maverick is plumb Eastern, that's all,' says Enright one day, while he's discussin' of this Slim Jim. 'He ain't to blame, but he ain't never goin' to do, none whatever, out yere. He can't no more get used to Arizona than one of the Disciples, an' he might camp 'round for years.'

"It's mebby hard onto a year when along comes the beginnin' of the end as far as this Slim Jim's concerned, only we-alls don't know it.