fraternizin' together like two stage hold-ups in a strange camp. The
West ain't ornery; she's simply reserved a whole lot.

"Mighty likely now," continued my friend, following a profound pause
which was comfortably filled with peach and honey; "it's mighty
likely now, comin' down to folks, that the most ornery party I ever
knows is Curly Ben. This yere Ben is killed, final; clowned by old
Captain Moon. Thar's a strange circumstance attendin', as the papers
say, the obliteration of this Curly Ben, an' it makes a heap of an
impression on me at the time. It shows how the instinct to do
things, that a bent is allers carryin' 'round in his mind, gets sort
o' located in his nerves mebby, an' he'll do 'em without his
intellects ridin' herd on the play--do 'em like Curly Ben does,
after his light is out complete.

"This yere is what I'm trailin' up to: When Captain Moon fetches
Curly Ben that time, Curly is playin' kyards. He's jest dealin',
when, onbeknown to him, Moon comes Injunin' up from the r'ar
surreptitious, an' drills Curly Ben through the head; an' the bullet
bein' a '45 Colt's--for Moon ain't toyin' with Curly an' means
business--goes plumb through an' emerges from onder Curly Ben's off
eye. For that matter, it breaks the arm of a party who's playin'
opp'site to Curly, an' who is skinnin' his pasteboards at the time,
thinkin' nothin' of war. Which the queer part is this: Curly, as I
states--an' he never knows what hits him, an' is as dead as Santa
Anna in a moment--is dealin' the kyards. He's got the deck in his
hands. An' yet, when the public picks Curly off the floor, he's
pulled his two guns, an' has got one cocked. Now what do you--all
deem of that for the workin' of a left-over impulse when a gent is
dead?