"'Drawin' myse'f out o' the water, I straddles the bole of my tree, an' organizes for the catamount, who's already crawlin' after me. T'arin' off a convenient bough the thickness of your laig, I arranges myse'f as a reeception committee for visitin' catamounts, an' by way of beginnin' confers on my partic'lar anamile sech a bat over the snout that he falls back into the drink, an' starts to swimmin' fancy an' goin' 'round in circles, same as if his funny-bone's been teched.
"'Every time he gets in reach I jabs him in the eye with the splinter end of the bough, an' at last he grows that disgusted at these formal'ties he swims off to the bank. Thar he camps down on his ha'nches, an' glares green-eyed at me across the ragin' flood.
"'Shore, I could have raised the long yell for he'p, but am withheld by foolish pride. Besides, I can hear Ben an' Jenks tusslin' an' gruntin' an' carryin' on over in the mouth of the hollow, as they kyarves into each other with their knives, an' don't want to distract their attention.
"'As I sets camped thar on my lodged tree, an' the catamount is planted on the bank, I hears the lippin' splash of a paddle, an' then a voice which sounds like a chime of bells floats across to ask, "Dick Stallins, you ornery runnigate, wharever be you?"
"'It's my Sarah Ann, whose love, gettin' the upper hand of maidenly reeserve, has sent her projectin' 'round in search of me. She's in my dugout.
"'The catamount identifies her as soon as me; an' thinkin' she ought to be easy, he slides into the water ag'in an' starts for the boat. It's that dark I ain't shore of his deesigns ontil I sees him reach up, tip the dugout over, an' set Sarah Ann to wallowin' in the rushin' torrent. The dugout upsets on the catamount, an' this so confooses him that, by the time he's got his bearin's, Sarah Ann's been swept down to my tree, an' I've lifted her to a seat by my side. The catamount don't try to lay siege to our p'sition, recognizing it as impregnable, but paddles back to the shore an' goes into watchful camp as prior.
"'For myse'f, I'm so elevated with love an' affection at havin' Sarah Ann with me, I dismisses the catamount as a dead issue, an' as sech beneath contempt, an' by way of mollifyin' Sarah Ann's feelin's, cuts loose an' kisses her a gross or two of times, an' each like the crack of a bull-whacker's whip.
"'Old Bender hears them caresses plumb up to his house–as well he may, they're that onreeserved an' earnest–an' thinks it's some one shootin' a rifle. It has the effect of bringin' out the old Spartan with his Hawkins; an' the first word of it that reaches me an' Sarah Ann is him, Marm Bender an' the whole b'ilin' of folks is down thar on the bank, tryin' to make out in the gen'ral dimness whatever be we-all lovers doin' out thar in the middle of the Hawgthief on a snag.
"'They don't deetect my catamount none, which sagacious feline slinks off into the shadows covered with confoosion; all they sees is us. An' the spectacle certainly excites old Bender. "Gen'ral Jackson fit the Injuns!" he exclaims, as all of a sudden a thought strikes him; "that measly excoose for a Union Democrat out thar is seekin' to eelope with our Sarah Ann."
"'The old murderer starts to get a bead on me with the Hawkins. "Father," yells Marm Bender, pullin' at his sleeve, "you shore must be mistook."
"'Old Bender won't have it. "Maw," he returns, strivin' to disengage himse'f, "I was never mistook about nothin' in my life but once, an' that's when I shifts from baldface whiskey to hard cider on a temp'rance argyooment. Let me go, woman, till I drill the miscreant an' wash the stain from our fam'ly honor."
"'Before the old hom'cide can get to launderin' the fam'ly honor in my blood, however, Sarah Ann has interposed. "Don't go to blazing away at my Dickey, pop," she sings out, "or I'll shore burn every improvement you got, an' leave you an' maw an' me roofless in the midst of the wilderness."
"'This goes a long way towards soberin' down old Bender, because he knows my Sarah Ann's the Cumberland hollyhock to put them menaces into execootion. He lowers the muzzle of his old 8-squar', an' allows if I promises to marry the girl I can swim ashore an' be forgiven.
"'Thus the matter ends mighty amic'ble. We'all goes trackin' up to the house, a preacher is rushed to the scene from Pineknot, an' them nuptials between Sarah Ann an' me is sol'mnized. Shore, Jenks an' Ben is thar. They're found by a committee of their friends scattered about at the foot of the hollow, an' is collected an' brought up to the weddin' in blankets. Dave Daniels, who surveys the scene next day, says you could plant corn whar they fit, it's that plowed up.
"'Followin' the cer'mony Marm Bender an' the old gent takes me into their hearts an' cabin like I'm their own an' only son. He's a great old daddy-in-law, old Bender is, an' is ven'rated for forty miles about Gingham Mountain, as deevoted heart an' soul to baldface, seven-up an' sin in any shape.
"'That match-makin' catamount?
"'We hives him. Me an' my new daddy-in-law tracks him to his reetreat, an' when we're through he's plumb used up. I confers the pelt on my Sarah Ann; an' she spreads it on the floor over by her side of the bed, so as to put her little number sevens on it when she boils out of a winter's mornin' to light the fire, an' rustle me my matoot'nal buckwheat cakes an' sa'sage.'"
III
CYNTHIANA, PET-NAMED ORIGINAL SIN
"This yere speecific heroine is a heap onconventional, so much so as to be plumb puzzlin' to the common mind. Jest the same, she finishes winner, an' makes herse'f a gen'ral source of pride. She don't notify us, none whatever, that she intends a Wolfville deboo; jest nacherally descends upon us, that a-way, as onannounced as a mink on a settin' hen. All the same, we knows she's comin' while yet she's five mile out on the trail. Not that we savvys who she is or what she aims at; we merely gets moved up next to the fact that she's a lady, an' likewise no slouch for looks.
"We reads these yere trooths in the dust old Monte kicks up, as he comes swingin' in with the stage. Which it's the weakness of this inebriate, as I tells you former, that once let him get a lady aboard, it looks like it's a signal for him to go pourin' the leather into his team like he ain't got a minute to live. It's a p'lite attention he assoomes, in his besotted way, is doo the sex.
"It's the more strange, too, since it's the only attention Monte ever pays 'em. He never looks at 'em, never speaks to 'em; simply plants himse'f on the box, as up an' down as a cow's tail, an' t'ars into them harassed hosses. If the lady he's complimentin' that a-way was to get jolted overboard–which the same wouldn't be no mir'cal, considerin' how that dipsomaniac drives–it's even money he leaves her hunched up like a jack-rabbit alongside the trail, an' never thinks of stoppin' or turnin' back. He's merely a drunkard with that one fool idee of showin' off, an' nothin' the stage people's ever able to say can teach him different. From first to last you-all could measure Monte's notion of the pulcritoode of a petticoat passenger by the extent to which he lams loose with his whip. Given what he deems is a she-sunburst, he shorely does maltreat the company's live stock shameful.
"'If,' observes Peets, as a bunch of us stands gossipin' round in front of the Red Light that time, watchin' the dust cloud draw nearer an' nearer–'if it's poss'ble to imagine the old sot as havin' a Cleopatra to freight over from Tucson, it's a cow pony to a Mexican sheep he'd kill one of the wheelers.'
"Thar ain't none of us knows who this yere Cleopatra the Doc refers to is, onless it's Colonel Sterett, who edits the Daily Coyote. Still, the compar'son is plenty convincin'. Accordin' to the Doc himself, this Cleopatra's a meteoric female party, as lively as she is lovely, who sets a passel of ancient sports to walkin' in a cirkle back some'ers in the mists of time. Also, it's bloo chips to white, an' bet 'em higher than a cat's back, the Doc knows. The Doc is ondoubted the best eddicated gent that ever makes a moccasin track between Yuma an' the Raton Pass, an' when he onbuckles techin' any historic feachures, you can call for a gooseha'r pillow, an' go to sleep on it he ain't barkin' at no knot.
"Thar's a feeble