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 hook............