"'That's what comes to my relief. In two minutes this yere spreads to a general conflagration, and the last I sees of my deer he's flyin' over the Divide into the next canyon with his tail a-blazin'

an' him utterin' shrieks. I has only time to make camp, saddle up, an' line out of thar, to keep from bein' burned before my time.

"'This yere fire rages for two months, an' burns up a billion dollars worth of mountains, I'm a coyote if some folks don't talk of lawin' me about it.'

"'That's a yarn which has the year-marks of trooth, but all the same it's deer as saves my life once,' says Doc Peets, sorter trailin' in innocent-like when this Lyin' Jim gets through; 'leastwise their meat saves it. I'm out huntin' same as you is, this time to which I alloods.

"'I'm camped on upper Red River; up where the river is only about twelve feet wide. It ain't deep none, only a few inches, but it's dug its banks down about four feet. The river runs along the center of a mile-wide valley, which they ain't no trees in it, but all cl'ar an' open. It's snowin' powerful hard one, evenin' about 3 o'clock when I comes back along the ridge towards my camp onder the pines. While I'm ridin' along I crosses the trail of nineteen deer.

I takes it too quick, 'cause I needs deer in my business, an' I knows these is close or their tracks would be covered, the way it snows.

"'I runs the trail out into the open, headin' for the other ridge.

The snow is plenty deep out from onder the pines, but I keeps on.

Final, jest in the mouth of a canyon, over the other side where the pines begins ag'in, up jumps a black. tail from behind a yaller-pine log, and I drops him.

"'My pony's plumb broke down by now, so I makes up my mind to camp.

It's a 'way good site. Thar's water comin' down the canyon; thar's a big, flat floor of rocks--big as the dance-hall floor--an' all protected by a high rock-faced bluff, so no snow don't get thar none; an' out in front, some twelve feet, is a big pitch-pine log.

Which I couldn't a-fixed things better if I works a year.

"'I sets fire to the log, cuts up my deer, an' sorter camps over between the log an' bluff, an' takes things as ba'my as summer. I has my saddle-blanket an' a slicker, an' that's all I needs.

"'Thar ain't no gra.s.s none for the little hoss, but I peels him about a bushel of quakin'-ash bark, an' he's doin' well 'nough.

Lord! how it snows outside! When I peers out in the mornin' it scares me. I saddles up, 'cause my proper camp is in the pines t'other side of this yere open stretch, an' I've got to make it.

"'My pony is weak, an' can only push through the snow, which is five feet deep. I'm walkin' along all comfortable, a-holdin' of his tail, when "swish" he goes plumb outen sight. I peers into the orifice which ketches him, an' finds he's done slumped off that four-foot bank into Red River, kerslop! Which he's at once swept from view; the river runnin' in ondcr the snow like a tunnel.

"That settles it; I goes pirootin' back. I lives in that canyon two months. It snows a heap after I gets back, an' makes things deeper'n ever. I has my deer to eat, not loadin' my pony with it when I starts, an' I peels some sugar-pines, like I sees Injuns, an'

sc.r.a.pes off the white skin next the trees, an' makes a pasty kind of bread of it, an' I'm all right.

"'One mornin', jest before I gets out of meat, I sees trouble out in the snow. Them eighteen deer--thar's nineteen, but I c'llects one, as I says--comes sa'nterin' down my canyon while I'm asleep, an'

goes out an' gets stuck in the snow. I allows mebby they dresses about sixty pounds each, an' wallers after 'em with my knife an'

kills six.

"'This yere gives me meat for seventy-two days--five pounds a day, which with the pine bark is sh.o.r.e enough, The other twelve I turns 'round an' he'ps out into the canyon ag'in, an' do you know, them deer's that grateful they won't leave none? It's a fact, they simply hangs 'round all the time I'm snowed in.

"'In two months the snow melts down, an' I says adios to my twelve deer an' starts for camp. Which you-alls mebby imagines my s'prise when I beholds my pony a-grazin' out in the open, saddle on an'

right. Yere's how it is: He's been paradin' up an' down the bed of Red River onder that snow tunnel for two months. Oh! he feeds easy enough. Jest bites the yerbage along the banks. This snow tunnel is four feet high, an' he's got plenty of room.

"'I'm some glad to meet up with my pony that a-way, you bet! an'

ketches him up an' rides over to my camp. An' I'm followed by my twelve deer, which comes cavortin' along all genial an' cordial an'

never leaves me. No, my hoss is sound, only his feet is a little water-soaked an' tender; an' his eyes, bein' so long in that half.

dark place onder the snow, is some weak an' sore.'

"As no one seems desirous to lie no more after Doc Peets gets through, we-alls eats an' drinks all we can, an' then goes over to the dance-hall an' whoops her up in honor of Red Dog. Nothin' could go smoother.

"When it comes time to quit, we has a little trouble gettin'

sep'rate from 'em, but not much. We-alls starts out to 'scort 'em to Red Dog as a guard of honor, an' then they, bustin' with p'liteness, 'scorts us back to Wolfville. Then we-alls, not to be raised out, sees 'em to Red Dog ag'in, an' not to have the odd hoss onto 'em in the matter, back they comes with us.

"I don't know how often we makes this yere round trip from one camp to t'other, cause my mem'ry is some dark on the later events of that Thanksgivin'. My pony gets tired of it about the third time back, an' humps himse'f an' bucks me off a whole lot, whereupon I don't go with them Red Dog folks no further, but nacherally camps down back of the mesquite I lights into, an, sleeps till mornin'. You bet!

it's a great Thanksgivin'.'

CHAPTER XXL.

BILL HOSKINS'S c.o.o.n.

"Now I thoroughly saveys," remarked the Old Cattleman reflectively, at a crisis in our conversation when the talk turned on men of small and cowardly measure, "I thoroughly saveys that taste for battle that lurks in the deefiles of folk's nacher like a wolf in the hills Which I reckons now that I, myse'f, is one of the peacefullest people as ever belts on a weepon; but in my instincts--while I never jestifies or follows his example--I cl'arly apprehends the emotions of a gent who convenes with another gent all sim'lar, an' expresses his views with his gun. Sech is human nacher onrestrained, an' the same, while deplorable, is not s'prisin'.

"But this yere Olson I has in my mem'ry don't have no sech manly feelin's as goes with a gun play. Olson is that cowardly he's even furtive; an' for a low-flung measly game let me tell you-all what Olson does. It's sh.o.r.ely ornery.

"It all arises years ago, back in Tennessee, an' gets its first start out of a hawg which is owned by Olson an' is downed by a gent named Hoskins--Bill Hoskins. It's this a-way.

"Back in Tennessee in my dream-wreathed yooth, when livestock goes projectin' about permiscus, a party has to build his fences 'bull strong, hawg tight, an' hoss high,' or he takes results. Which Hoskins don't make his fences to conform to this yere rool none; leastwise they ain't hawg tight as is shown by one of Olson's hawgs.

"The hawg comes pirootin' about Hoskins's fence, an' he goes through easy; an' the way that invadin' animal turns Bill's potatoes bottom up don't hinder him a bit. He sh.o.r.ely loots Bill's lot; that's whatever.

"But Bill, perceivin' of Olson's hawg layin' waste his crop, reaches down a 8-squar' rifle, 30 to the pound, an' stretches the hawg.

Which this is where Bill falls into error. Layin' aside them deeficiencies in Bill's fence, it's cl'ar at a glance a hawg can't be held responsible. Hawgs is ignorant an' tharfore innocent; an'

while hawgs can be what Doc Peets calls a' CASUS BELLI,' they can't be regarded as a foe legitimate.

"Now what Bill oughter done, if he feels like this yore hawg's done put it all over him, is to go an' lay for Olson. Sech action by Bill would have been some excessive,--some high so to speak; but it would have been a line shot. Whereas killin' the hawg is 'way to one side of the mark; an' onder.

"However, as I states, Bill bein' hasty that a-way, an' oncapable of perhaps refined reasonin', downs the pig, an' stands pat, waitin'

for Olson to fill his hand, if he feels so moved.

"It's at this pinch where the cowardly nacher of this yere Olson begins to shine. He's ugly as a wolf about Bill copperin' his hawg that a-way, but he don't pack the nerve to go after Bill an' make a round-up of them grievances. An' he ain't allowin' to pa.s.s it up none onrevenged neither. Now yere's what Olson does; he 'sa.s.sinates Bill's pet racc.o.o.n.

"That's right, son, jest ma.s.sacres a pore, confidin' racc.o.o.n, who don't no more stand in on that hawg-killin' of Bill's, than me an'

you,--don't even advise it.

"Which I sh.o.r.ely allows you saveys all thar is to know about a racc.o.o.n. No? Well, a racc.o.o.n's like this: In the first place he's plumb easy, an' ain't lookin' for no gent to hold out kyards or ring a cold deck on him. That's straight; a racc.o.o.n is simple-minded that a-way; an' his impressive trait is, he's meditative. Besides bein'

nacherally thoughtful, a racc.o.o.n is a heap melancholy,--he jest sets thar an' absorbs melancholy from merely bein' alive.

"But if a racc.o.o.n is melancholy or gets wropped in thought that a- way, it's after all his own play. It's to his credit that once when he's tamed, he's got mountainous confidence in men, an' will curl up to sleep where you be an' shet both eyes. He's plumb trustful; an'

moreover, no matter how mournful a racc.o.o.n feels, or how plumb melancholy he gets, he don't pester you with no yarns.

"I reckons I converses with this yere identical racc.o.o.n of Bill's plenty frequent; when he feels blue, an' ag'in when he's at his gailiest, an' he never remarks nothin' to me except p'lite general'ties.

"If this yere Olson was a dead game party who regards himse'f wronged, he'd searched out a gun, or a knife, or mebby a club, an'

pranced over an' rectified Bill a whole lot. But he's too timid an'

too cowardly, an' afraid of Bill. So to play even, he lines out to bushwhack this he'pless, oninstructed racc.o.o.n. Olson figgers to take advantage of what's cl'arly a loop-hole in a racc.o.o.n's const.i.tootion.

"Mebby you never notices it about a racc.o.o.n, but once he gets interested in a pursoot, he's rigged so he can't quit none ontil the project's a success. Thar's herds an' bands of folks an' animals who's fixed sim'lar. They can start, an' they can't let up. Thar's bull-dogs: They begins a war too easy; but the c'pacity to quit is left out of bull-dogs entire. Same about nose-paint with gents I knows. They capers up to whiskey at the beginnin' like a kitten to warm milk; an' they never does cease no more. An' that's how the kyards falls to racc.o.o.ns.

"Knowin these yere deefects in racc.o.o.ns, this Olson plots to take advantage tharof; an' by playin' it low on Bill's racc.o.o.n, get even with Bill about that dead hawg. Which Bill wouldn't have took a drove of hawgs; no indeed! not the whole Fall round-up of hawgs in all of West Tennessee, an' lose that racc.o.o.n.

"It's when Bill's over to Pine Knot layin' in tobacker, an' nose- paint an' corn meal, an' sech necessaries, when Olson stands in to down Bill's pet. He goes injunnin' over to Bill's an' finds the camp all deserted, except the racc.o.o.n's thar, settin', battin' his eyes mournful an' lonesome on the doorstep. This Olson camps down by the door an' fondles the racc.o.o.n, an' strokes his coat, an' lets him search his pockets with his black hands ontil he gets that friendly an' confident about Olson he'd told him anythin'. It's then this yere miscreant, Olson, springs his game. "H's got a couple of crawfish which he's fresh caught at the Branch. Now racc.o.o.ns regards crawfish as onusual good eatin'. For myse'f, I can't say I deems none high of crawfish as viands, but racc.o.o.ns is different; an' the way they looks at it, crawfish is pie.