Dear Sir:
It is useless for me to tell you that there wasn’t no letters or money
at the post-office for me, but I write to give you the satisfaction of
knowing that I don’t care no more. You know as well as I do that it is a
surprise to me to have my best friend turn me down like this. If it was
Windy or Hondo I’d expect it. There ain’t no news so I won’t waste
valuable paper on you. I got disgusted with this town, Hank. Since I
came here I ain’t had nothing but vissitudes and grief, and when the
feller, what runs the Antelope stage, asks me if I want to ride over
with him I jumps at the chance.
Who do you think I runs into the first crack out of the box? Uncle
Gabriel. He grins at me and asks me if I can’t find nobody left in
Mesquite to fight with. I told him that I was looking for a place where
men knowed enough about fair play to come one at a time. That left him
dumfounded, Hank, so I went up to a saloon, and got dumfounded myself,
when I runs into Windy and Hondo. There’s another feller with them and
they’re all stewed, and having a hy-iu time.
Windy looks me over, in a serious way, and then says:
“Dobie, your blood must be in bad condition, ’cause you ain’t heeled up
none since we hit you the first time. Go eat a dog-biscuit.”
Hank, I just happens to think what Emmeline told me not to do, so I
turns the joke on them like this:
“Windy, what you and Hondo done to me never hurt me no more than a kid
with the measles. It just made me sore, so I went out and had a real
fight.”
“Yes,” says Hondo, “you look it. Let’s all have a drink.”
There’s one good thing about them fellers—they don’t hold a grudge. They
sure treated me fine, and that other feller was a prince, too. We hit
the high spots as long as we can keep going, and we sure showed that
town a real visit.
When we can’t find nothing more to do that extra feller loads us all
into a livery rig, and we sings songs all the way back to Mesquite City.
I went to sleep singing “The Holy City” and woke up in a manger in a
livery stable the next morning. Hank, I sure was one sick person. I
manages to get out and soak my head in a watering trough, and anything
on earth looks better than I feel.
I goes out and sets down on the sidewalk, and along comes Uncle Gabe in
a buggy.
“Get in, young feller,” says he, and Hank, I was too sick to say no.
He takes me up to his house and puts me to bed. I’m writing this letter
in Uncle Gabriel’s house now, and Emmeline is making me a lemonade
drink. Uncle Gabe says that if I keep on I’ll be domesticated, whatever
that is, Hank.
Well, Hank, there ain’t no more news to write so will close. That extra
feller what was with us at Antelope was the detective on the case.
They’ve got Windy and Hondo in jail for robbing that bank, and you won’t
see them for some time. They confessed today.