earted, and thinking so much
of Hill, to fire up like that about Santa Fe's pool on when he'd get
his medicine; and all the boys knowed that beside the address she was
making to the whole congregation Santa Fe was going to get another,
and a worse one, when she had him off where she could play out to him
a lone hand. But the boys didn't mind the jawing she give 'em--except
they was a little ashamed, knowing putting such a rig on Hill was a
mean thing to do--and I guess the whole business would have ended
right there (only for the dressing-down Santa Fe was to get later) if
Hart's nephew hadn't taken it into his head to chip in--being
drunker'n usual, and a fool anyway--and so started what turned out to
be a fresh game.

I do suppose Hart's nephew was about the meanest ever got born. Bill
Hart was a good enough fellow himself, and how he ever come to have
such a God-forsaken chump for a nephew was more'n anybody could tell.
Things must have been powerful bad, I reckon, on his mother's side. He
was one of the blowing kind, with nothing behind his blow; and his
feet was that tender they wasn't fit to walk on anything harder'n
fresh mush. The boys all the time was putting up rigs on him; and he'd
go around talking so big about what he meant to do to get even with
'em you'd think he was going to clean out the whole town. But he took
mighty good care to do his tall talking promiscuous: after making the
mistake of trying it once on a little man he thought he could
manage--a real peaceable little feller that looked like he wouldn't
stand up to a kitten--and getting his nose and his mouth and his eyes
all mashed into one. The little man apologized to the rest for doing
it that way, saying he'd a-been ashamed of himself all the rest of his
life if he'd gone for a thing like that with his gun.

Well, it was this Hart's nephew--like enough he had some sort of a
name that belonged to him, but he wasn't worth the trouble of finding
out what it was--who chipped in when the Hen took to her tirading, and
so give things a new turn. Standing up staggery, and talking in his
drunk fool way, he told her the road across to Santa Fe was as safe as
a Sunday-school; and he said he'd be glad to be in Hill's boots and
drive that coach himself, seeing what an interest she took in
stage-drivers; and he asked her, sort of nasty, how she managed to get
along for company when Hill was at the other end of his run. Hart's
nephew was drunker'n usual tha