第31章

Colonel Sterett's Reminiscences "An' who is Colonel William Greene Sterett, you asks?" repeated the Old Cattleman, with some indignant elevation of voice."He's the founder of the Coyote, Wolfville's first newspaper; is as cultivated a gent that a-way as acquires his nose-paint at the Red Light's bar;an' comes of as good a Kaintucky fam'ly as ever distils its own whiskey or loses its money on a hoss.Son, I tells you this prior."This last reproachfully.

"No, Colonel Sterett ain't old none--not what you-all would call aged.When he comes weavin' into Wolfville that time, I reckons now Colonel Sterett is mighty likely about twenty-odd years younger than me, an' at that time I shows about fifty rings on my horns.As for eddication, he's shore a even break with Doc Peets, an' as I remarks frequent, I never calls the hand of that gent in Arizona who for a lib'ral enlightenment is bullsnakes to rattlesnakes with Peets.

"Speakin' about who Colonel Sterett is, he onfolds his pedigree in full one evenin' when we're all sort o' self-herded in the New York Store.Which his story is a proud one, an' I'm a jedge because comin as I do from Tennessee myse'f, nacherally I saveys all about Kaintucky.Thar's three grades of folks in Kaintucky, the same bein'

contingent entire on whereabouts them folks is camped.Thar's the Bloo Grass deestrict, the Pennyr'yal deestrict, an' the Purchase.

The Bloo Grass folks is the 'ristocrats, while them low-flung trash from the Purchase is a heap plebeian.The Pennyr'yal outfit is kind o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down in between the other two, an' is part 'ristocratic that a-way an' part mud.As for Colonel Sterett, he's pure strain Bloo Grass, an' he shows it.I'll say this for the Colonel, an' it shorely knits me to him from the first, he could take a bigger drink of whiskey without sugar or water than ever I sees a gent take in my life.

"That time I alloods to, when Colonel Sterett vouchsafes them recollections, we-all is in the r'ar wareroom of the New York Store where the whiskey bar'ls be, samplin' some Valley Tan that's jest been freighted in.As she's new goods, that Valley Tan, an' as our troo views touchin' its merits is important to the camp, we're testin' the beverage plenty free an' copious.No expert gent can give opinions worth a white chip concernin' nosepaint short o' six drinks, an' we wasn't out to make no errors in our findin's about that Valley Tan.So, as I relates, we're all mebby some five drinks to the good, an' at last the talk, which has strayed over into the high grass an' is gettin' a whole lot too learned an' profound for most of the herd to cut in on, settles down between Doc Peets an Colonel Sterett as bein' the only two sports able to protect their play tharin.

"An' you can go as far as you like on it,' says the Colonel to Peets, 'I'm plumb wise an' full concernin' the transmigration of souls.I gives it my hearty beliefs.I can count a gent up the moment I looks at him; also I knows exactly what he is before he's a hooman bein'.'

"'That "transmigration" that a-way,' whispers Dan Boggs to Cherokee Hall, 'ain't no fool of a word.I'll prance over an' pull it on Red Dog to-morry.Which it's shore doo to strike'em dumb.'

"'Now yere's Hoppin' Harry,' goes on the Colonel p'intin' to a thin, black little felon with long ha'r like a pony, who's strayed over from Tucson; 'I gives it out cold, meanin' tharby no offence to our Tucson friend--I gives it out cold that Hoppin' Harry used to be a t'rant'ler.First,' continyoos the Colonel, stackin' Harry up mighty scientific with his optic jest showin' over his glass, 'first Iallows he's a toad.Not a horned toad, which is a valyooed beast an'

has a mission; but one of these yere ornery forms of toads which infests the East.This last reptile is vulgar-sluggish, a anamile of few if any virchoos; while the horned toad, so called, come right down to cases, ain't no toad nohow.It's a false brand, an' he don't belong with the toad herd at all.The horned toad is a lizard--a broad kind o' lizard; an' as for bein' sluggish, you let him have something on his mind speshul, an' he'll shore go careerin' about plumb swift.Moreover, he don't hop, your horned toad don't, like them Eastern toads; he stands up on his toes an' paces--he's what we-all calls on the Ohio River back in my childhood's sunny hours, "a side-wheeler." Also, he's got a tail.An' as for sperit, let me tell you this:--I has a horned toad where I'm camped over by the Tres Hermanas, where I'm deer-huntin'.I wins that toad's love from the jump with hunks of bread an' salt hoss an' kindred del'cacies.

He dotes on me.When time hangs heavy, I entertains myse'f with a dooel between Augustus--Augustus bein' the horned toad's name--, an'

a empty sardine box for which he entertains resentments.

"'"Lay for him, Augustus!" I'd say, at the same instant battin' him in the nose with the box.

"'Of course, Augustus ain't got savey enough to realize I does it.

He allows it's the box that a-way makin' malev'lent bluffs at him.

An' say, pards, it would have made you proud of your country an' its starry flag to see Augustus arch himse'f for war on them o'casions.

"'Not that Augustus is malignant or evil disposed, nacheral.No, sir; I've yet to meet up with the toad who has his ******, even, gen'rous temper or lovin' heart; as trustful too, Augustus is, as the babe jest born.But like all noble nachers, Augustus is sensitive, an' he regyards them bats in the nose as insults.As Isays, you-all should have seen him! He'd poise himse'f on his toes, erect the horn on his nose, same as one of these yere rhinoceroses of holy writ, an' then the way Augustus hooks an' harasses that offensive sardine box about the camp is a lesson to folks.'

"'Where's this yere Augustus now?' asks Dan Boggs, who's got all wropped up in the Colonel's narratifs.

"'Petered,' says the Colonel, an' thar's feelin's in his tones;'pore Augustus cashes in.He's followin' me about one mornin'