ks.

"Enright?

"The old silver tip stands nootral, not sidin' with either Peets an'
Boggs or Tutt an' Texas.

"'Which this yere Mike bein' shore dead,' says Enright, 'strikes me as
s'fficient. I plants my moccasins on that, an' don't go pirootin' an'
projectin' about for no s'lootions which may or may not leave me out
on a limb.'

"You recalls how it's Monte who, while gettin' drunk with him over to
the Oriental S'loon in Tucson, deloodes Mike into p'intin' our way.
Also, what Enright says to that deboshed stage driver for so doin'.
Enright's shore fervent on that occasion, an' the language he uses
would have killed two acres of grass. But that don't he'p none. After
the dust Enright paws up has settled, thar's Mike still, all quiled up
in the Wolfville lap.

"Thar's a worse feachure, the same bein' Mike's wife. She's as young,
an' mighty nigh as lovely, too, as Nell; only she's blind, this yere
Mike's girl wife is, blind as any midnight mole. Besides her, an' a
armful of paint breshes an' pictures, about all Mike's got in the way
of plunder is a ten-dollar bill. If it's only Mike, we-all might have
thickened our hides a heap, an' let him go jumpin' sideways for his
daily grub, same as other folks. But girls must be fed, speshully
blind ones.

"Which this egreegious Mike, who calls her his 'little Joolie,' allows
her bein' blind that a-way is why he marries her.

"'It inshores her innocence,' he says; 'because it inshores her
ignorance of the world.'

"'Likewise,' remarks Peets, as we stands discussin' this yere
reasonin' of Mike's in the Red Light, 'it inshores her ignorance of
them onmitigated pictures he paints. Which if ever she was just to get
one good look at 'em, he couldn't hold her with a Spanish bit. But
you-all knows how it is, Sam?'--Yere Peets clinks his glass, an' all
mighty sagacious, ag'inst Enright's--'The wind is tempered to the
shorn lamb. On the whole, I ain't none convinced that her bein' blind,
that a-way, ain't for the best.'

"To look at this little Joolie, you-all'd never know she can't see
none. Her eyes is big an' soft an' deep, an nothin' queer about 'em
except they has a half-blurred, baby look. Peets allows it's the nerve
bein' dead which does it. But blind or not, little Joolie shore dotes
on that Red Mike husband of hers, as though he's made of love an'
gold. Which he's her heaven!

"While it's evident, after a ca'm an' onbiased consideration of
his works, that from standp