never the camp's invaded by any over-enlightened
people who's gone too far in schools for the rest of us to break even
with, we ups an' plays Doc Peets or Colonel Sterett onto 'em; an' the way
either of them gents would turn in an' tangle said visitors up mental
don't bother 'em a bit. That's straight; Peets an' the Colonel is our
refooge; they're our protectors; an' many a time an' oft, have I beheld
'em lay for some vain-glorious savant who's got a notion the Southwest,
that a-way, is a region of savagery where the folks can't even read an'
write none, an' they'd rope, throw, an' hawgtie him--verbal, I means--an'
brand his mem'ry with the red-hot fact that he's wrong an' been wadin' in
error up to the saddle-girths touchin' the intellectooal attainments of
good old Arizona. Shore,--Doc Peets has other uses than drugs, an' he
discharges 'em.

"Now that I thinks of the matter, it's Doc Peets who restores Dave Tutt
to full standin' with Tucson Jennie, the time she begins to neglect Dave.
You see, the trouble is this a-way: It really starts--leastwise I allers
so believes--in Dave's beginnin' wrong with Tucson Jennie. Troo, as I
confesses to you frequent yeretofore, I ain't married none myse'f; still,
I've been livin' a likely number of years, an' has nacherally witnessed a
whole lot touchin' other gents an' their wives; an' sech experiences is
bound to breed concloosions. An' while I may be wrong, for these yere
views is nothin' more than a passel of ontested theeries with me, it's my
beliefs that thar's two attitoodes, speakin' gen'ral, which a gent
assoomes toward his bride. Either he deals with her on what we-all will
call the buck-squaw system, or he turns the game about complete, an'
organises his play on the gentleman-lady system. In the latter, the gent
waits on his wife; he comes an' he goes, steps high or soft, exactly as
she commands. She gives the orders; an' he rides a pony to death
execootin' 'em, an' no reemonstrances nor queries. That wife is range
an' round-up boss for her outfit.

"But the buck-squaw system is after all more hooman an' satisfactory.
It's opposite to the other. The gent is reesponsible for beef on the
hook an' flour in the bar'l. He's got to provide the blankets, make good
ag'in the household's hunger, an' see to it thar's allers wood an' water
within easy throw of every camp he pitches. Beyond that, however, the
gent who's playin' the buck-squaw system don't wander. When he's