I reckon you’ll look at the top of this letter and say you’ll bet that
Dobie is in a business in Pyrites, but, Hank, you are mistaken. If you
know what rusticating is, that’s me. This town is only about seven miles
from Mesquite City, Hank, but that don’t say much for the place if you
have to run all them seven miles in the dark.
Hank, I never did have no luck. If the Government throwed the mint open
for settlement, I’d be in jail. When they was passing the luck around, I
must ’a’ been at the foot of the table and got a piece that nobody else
had the stummick to tackle.
Remember the night that I got married, Hank? I ain’t referring to the
boot with a spur on it that hit me on the head, but to the incident
where “Shorty” Wells got too enthusiastic and hived seven shot into my
leg. Remember what the preacher said? He said, “That is unfortunate.” It
sure was, Hank. If Shorty had only held about four feet higher—oh, boy!
Well, there ain’t no use yelling and hollering.
I ain’t kicking about anything I’m to blame for; so you don’t hear a yip
out of me about my wife Emmeline. Of course, I thought the sun was
rising for me when I married her, Hank, but I must have been facing the
west. I don’t mind saying to you, Hank, that I made a mistake, and that
don’t say nothing about the immensity of said mistake. Emmeline ain’t so
bad all by herself, but she’s got some blood-relatives that mention
Captain Kidd in their evening prayers. I’m only a puncher, Hank, but I’m
a honest one.
Remember me writing you about Uncle Gabe Galesburg, Emmeline’s uncle?
Hank, all that _hombre_ needs is a knife in his teeth and a
muzzle-loading pistol in his hand and a gang-plank to make folks walk
down, and he’s got Captain Kidd, Captain John Smith and so forth pulling
leather and looking for a soft spot to light on to.
He’s meaner than a loco longhorn, Hank, but he’s got one redeeming
feature. He recognizes brains and ability when he meets them. He bought
out the Manzanita stage line and took me in cahoots with him, which is
as should be. He naturally made me the whole cheese, but, to hear him
talk, you’d think he owned it lock, stock and barrel.
He gets so that he’s the fly in my axlegrease, but, as I don’t make it a
practise to fight with my relatives, I keeps my face shut. Of course, he
ain’t no relative of mine, except by marriage, but ignorance of the law
ain’t no excuse. I got mad one morning, Hank, and I sure hopped him
plenty.
“How comes it that I don’t handle nothing but a pair of lines around
here when I’m supposed to be manager?” I asks. “Am I or am I not what I
appear to be?”
Hank, you know I ain’t nobody to beat around about a thing. I go after
action, and, when I pinned him down to it, he says:
“You are, Dobie. Anybody can see that.”
“Well,” says I, “when anybody comes in here and asks for the boss, you
always speak up and ask what they want. Are you deaf?”
“Dobie,” says he, “I don’t wish to overwork you. I don’t want Emmeline’s
husband to break down physically. I think a lot of her, Dobie.”
“Which proves that blood is thicker than water,” says I. “But I don’t
want you for a minute to think that I’m water. I’m blood, iron and
bone.”
“I’ll pass,” says he, “I don’t know much about corpuscles nor
mineralogy, but I confirms part of your statement.”
Get the idea, Hank? Pin ’em down to facts. I wasn’t through with him
yet, as you may see; so I continues like this:
“Then how comes it that I don’t know more about the business? Half the
time I don’t know whether the load I’m hauling is worth two-bits or a
million dollars.”
“Well,” says he, “you can figure it like this, Dobie: if it was only
worth two-bits, I’d close up business and use the horses for bear-bait,
and, if it was worth a million dollars, I’d put you in jail and drive it
myself.”
I’m just telling you this, Hank, so you can see the kind of a _hombre_
I’ve got for a pardner. Did you ever know a feller by the name of “Devil
Creek” Davis? I asked him if he knowed you, and he said—
“The feller that everybody said stole the spotted calf from the Widder
Heffliger over in Smoky Springs?”