an' Jack an' Pickles walks over side an' side. They goes in alone
an' shets the door. In about five minutes, thar's some emphatic
remarks by two six-shooters, an' we-all goes chargin' to find out.
We discovers Jack eatin' away all right; Pickles is the other side,
with his head in his tin plate, his intellects runnin' out over his
eye. Jack's shore subdooed that savage for all time.

"'It don't look like Pickles is hungry none,' says Jack.

"They both pulls their weepons as they sets down, an' puts 'em in
their laps; but bein' bred across, that a-way, Pickles can't stand
the strain. He gets nervous an' grabs for his gun; the muzzle
catches onder the table-top, an' thar's his bullet all safe in the
wood. Jack, bein' clean strain American, has better luck, an'
Pickles is got. Shore, it's right an' on the squar'!

"'You sees,' says Dan Boggs, 'this killin's bound to be right from
the jump. It comes off by Pickles' earnest desire; Jack couldn't
refoose. He would have lost both skelp an' standin' if he had.
Which, however, if this yere 'limination of Pickles has got to have
a name, my idee is to call her a case of self-deestruction on
Pickles' part, an' let it go at that.'"




CHAPTER IV.

Johnny Florer's Axle Grease.