's
all right now. Which I will say, however, that I can't reeflect none
without a shudder on what them Tucson folks'll say an' think, so soon
as ever they wakes up to what's been played on 'em.'"

V

HOW THE MOCKING BIRD WAS WON

"Myst'ries?

"We lives surrounded by 'em. Look whar you will, nacher has a ace
buried. Take dogs, now: Why is it when one of 'em, daylight or dark,
cuts the trail of a anamile, he never makes the fool mistake of
back-trackin' it, but is shore to run his game the way it's movin'?
There must be some kind of head-an'-tail to the scent, that a-way, to
give the dog the hunch. Myst'ry!--all myst'ry! The more a gent goes
messin' 'round for s'lootions, the more he's taught hoomility an' that
he ain't knee-high to toads.

"An' yet when it comes to things myster'ous everything else is bound
to go to the diskyard compared to a lady's heart. Of course, I speaks
only in a sperit of philos'phy, an' not as one who's suffered. I never
myse'f am able pers'nal to approach closter to a lady's heart than
across the street. Peets once reemarks that all trails leads to Rome.
In that business of trails a lady's heart has got Rome left standin'
sideways. Not only does every trail lead tharunto, but thar's sech a
thing as goin' cross-lots. Take gettin' in love; thar's as many ways
as cookin' eggs. While you'll see gents who goes skallyhootin' into
that dulcet condition as straight as a arrer, thar's others who sidles
in, an' still others who backs in. I even knows a boy who shoots his
way in.

"Which the lady in this case is the Mockin' Bird. That Mockin' Bird
maiden has wooers by onbounded scores, but holds herse'f as shy an' as
much aloof as if she's a mountain sheep. Not one can get near enough
to her to give her a ripe peach. Along comes the eboolient Turkey
Track, bulges headlong into her dest'nies, takes to menacin' at her
with a gun an', final, to bombardin' her outright, an'--love an' heart
an' hand--she comes a-runnin'.

"Wolfville's without that last evidence of advancement, a callaboose.
It bein' inconvenient to shoot up or lynch everybody who infringes our
rooles, Jack Moore invents a convincin' but innocuous punishment for
minor offenders. Endorsed by Enright, he established a water
trough--it's big enough to swim a dog--over by the windmill; an' when
some perfervid cow-puncher, sufferin' from a overdose of nosepaint,
takes to aggravatin' 'round Moore swashes him about in the trough some