I won't be sep'rated from Yuba. When we can no
longer drink, we turns in at Yuba's wickeyup an' sleeps. The next
mornin' we picks up the work of reeconciliation where it slips from our
tired hands the evenin' before. I does intend to reepair to my camp
when we rolls out; but after the third conj'int drink both me an' Yuba
sees so many reasons why it's a fool play I gives up the idee utter.

"'Gents, it's no avail to pursoo me an' Yuba throughout them four
feverish days. We drifts from one drink-shop to the other, arm in arm,
as peaceful an' pleased a pair of sots as ever disturbs the better
element. Which we're the scandal of Tucson; we-all is that thickly
amiable it's a insult to other men. Thus ends my first dooel; a
conflict as bloodless as she is victorious. How long it would have
took me an' Yuba to thoroughly cement our friendships will never be
known. At the finish, we-all is torn asunder by the Tucson marshal an'
I'm returned to my camp onder gyard. Me an' Yuba before nor since
never does wax that friendly with any other gent; we'd be like brothers
yet, only the Stranglers over to Shakespear seizes on pore Yuba one
mornin' about a hoss an' heads him for his home on high.'"

CHAPTER XIV.

The Troubles of Dan Boggs.

"This yere," remarked the Old Cattleman, at the heel of a half-hour
lecture on life and its philosophy, "this yere is a evenin' when they
gets to discussin' about luck. It's doorin' the progress of this
dispoote when Cherokee Hall allows that luck don't alternate none,
first good an' then bad, but travels in bunches like cattle or in
flocks like birds. 'Whichever way she comes,' says Cherokee, 'good or
bad, luck avalanches itse'f on a gent. That's straight!' goes on
Cherokee. 'You bet! I speaks from a voloominous experience an' a life
that, whether up or down, white or black, ain't been nothin' but luck.
Which nacherally, bein' a kyard sharp that a-way, I studies luck the
same as Peets yere studies drugs; an' my discov'ries teaches that luck
is plumb gregar'ous. Like misery in that proverb, luck loves company;
it shore despises to be lonesome.'

"'Cherokee, I delights to hear you talk,' says Old Man Enright, as he
signs up Black Jack for the Valley Tan. 'Them eloocidations is meant
to stiffen a gent's nerve an' do him good. Shore; no one needs
encouragement nor has to train for a conflict with good luck; but it's
when he's out ag'inst the iron an' the bad luck's swoopin' an