it's now. But thar's one last dooty to perform touchin' deceased.
It's evident, departed is about to ask me to drink. It's this yere
motion he makes for his whiskey which I mistakes for a gun play.
Thar I errs, an' stacks up this Red Dog person wrong. Now that I
onderstands, while acknowledgin' my fal'cies, the least I can do is
to respect deceased's last wishes. I tharfore," says Toothpick,
raisin' the Red Dog party's flask, "complies with what, if I hadn't
interrupted him, would have been his last requests. An' regrettin' I
don't savey sooner, I drinks to him."

"No," concluded the Old Cattleman, "as I intimates at the go-off,
Toothpick don't stay long after that. No one talks of stringin' him
for what's a plain case of bad jedgment, an' nothin' more. But
still, Wolfville takes a notion ag'in him, an' don't want him 'round
none. So he has to freight out.

"'You are all right, Toothpick, speakin' gen'ral,' says Old Man
Enright, when him an' Doc Peets an' Jack Moore comes up on Toothpick
to notify him it's the Stranglers' idee he'd better pack his wagons
an' hit the trail, "but you don't hold your six-shooter enough in
what Doc Peets yere calls 'abeyance.' Without puttin' no stain on
your character, it's right to say you ain't sedentary enough, an'
that you-all is a heap too soon besides. In view, tharfore, of what
I states, an' of you droppin' this yere Red Dog gent--not an ounce
of iron on him at the time!--while we exonerates, we decides without
a dissentin' vote to sort o' look 'round the camp for you to-morry,
say at sundown, an' hang you some, should you then be present yere.
That's how the herd is grazin', Toothpick: an' if you're out to
commit sooicide, you'll be partic'lar to be with us at the hour I
names.'"