ain't filin' no objections to a drink, be you?" This last was to me.
"As for me, personal," he continued, "you can put down a bet I'm as
dry as a covered bridge." I readily assented to peach and honey. I
would agree to raw whiskey if it were needed to appease him and
permit me to remain in his graces.

"Thar's one thing, one redeemin' thing I might say, about the East,"
he went on, when the peach and honey appeared, "an' the same claims
my respects entire; that's its nose-paint. Which we shorely suffers
in the Southwest from beverages of the most ornery kind."

"There's a word I've wanted to ask you about more than once," I
said. "What do you mean by 'ornery,' and where do you get it?"

"Where do I get it?" he responded, with a tinge of scorn. "Where do
I rope onto any word? I jest nacherally reaches out an' acquires it
a whole lot, like I do the rest of the language I employs. As for
what it means, I would have allowed that any gent who escapes bein'
as weak-minded as Thompson's colt--an' that cayouse is that imbecile
he used tos wim a river to get a drink--would hesitate with shame to
ask sech questions.

"'Ornery' is a word the meanin' whereof is goin' to depend a heap on
what you brands with it." This was said like an oracle. "Also, the
same means more or less accordin' to who all puts the word in play.
I remembers a mighty decent sort of sport, old Cape Willingham it
is; an' yet Dan Boggs is forever referrin' to old Cape as 'ornery.'
An' I reckon Dan thinks he is. Which the trouble with Cape, from
Dan's standpoint, is this: Cape is one of these yere precise
parties, acc'rate as to all he does, an' plenty partic'lar about his