第19章

"The O.K.Restauraw is one of the few superior hostelries of the Territory.Mrs.Rucker, its charming proprietress, is a cook who might outrival even that celebrated chef, now dead, M.Soyer.Her pies are poems, her bread an epic, and her beans a dream, Mrs.

Rucker has cooked her way to every heart, and her famed establishment is justly regarded as the bright particular gem in Wolfville's municipal crown.

"It is not needed for us to remind our readers that Wolfville possesses in the person of that celebrated practitioner of medicine, Mr.Cadwallader Peets, M.D., a scientist whose fame is world-wide and whose renown has reached to furthest lands.Doctor Ports has beautifully mounted the skull of that horse-stealing ignobility, Bear Creel.Stanton, who recently suffered the punishment due his many crimes at the hands of our local vigilance committee, a tribunal which under the discerning leadership of President Enright, never fails in the administration of justice.Doctor Peets will be glad to exhibit this memento mori to all who care to call.Doctor Peets, who is eminent as a phrenologist, avers that said skull is remarkable for its thickness, and that its conformation points to the possession by Bear Creek, while he wore it, of the most powerful natural inclinations to crime.From these discoveries of Doctor Peets, the committee which suspended this felon to the windmill is to be congratulated on acting just in time.It seems plain from the contour of this skull that it would not have been long, had not the committee intervened, before Bear Creek would have added murder to horse larceny, and to-day the town might be mourning the death of a valued citizen instead of felicitating itself over the taking-off of a villain whose very bumps indict and convict him with every fair and enlightened intelligence that is brought to their contemplation.

"Our respected friend and subscriber, Mr.David Tutt, and his beautiful and accomplished lady, Mrs.David Tutt, nee Tucson Jennie, have returned from their stay in Silver City.Last night in honor of their coming, and to see their friends, this amiable and popular pair gave an At Home.There was every form of refreshment, and joy and merriment was unconfined.Miss Faro Dell was admittedly the belle of this festive occasion, and Diana would have envied her as, radiant and happy, she led the grand march leaning on the arm of Mr.

Cherokee Hall.By request of Mr.Daniel Boggs, the 'Lariat Polka'

was added to the programme of dances, as was also the 'Pocatello Reel' at the instance of Mr.Texas Thompson.As the ball progressed, and at the particular desire of those present, Mr.Boggs and Mr.

Thompson entertained the company with that difficult and intricate dance known as the 'Mountain Lion Mazourka,' accompanying their efforts with spirited vocalisms meant to imitate the defiant screams of a panther on its native hills.These cries, as well as the dance itself, were highly realistic, and Messrs.B.and T.were made the recipients of many compliments.Mr.and Mrs.Tutt are to be congratulated on the success of the function; to fully describe its many excellent features would exhaust encomium.

"Which we reads the foregoin' with onmixed pleasure, an' thar ain't a gent but who's plumb convinced that a newspaper, that a-way, is the bulwark of civilizations an' corner-stone of American institootions, which it's allowed to be by the voices of them ages.

"'This yere imprint, the Coyote,' says Jack Moore, 'is a howlin'

triumph, an' any gent disposed can go an' make a swell bet on it with every certainty of a-killin'.Also, I remembers yereafter about them bullets.'

"Meanwhile, like I states prior, Red Dog has its editor, who whirls loose a paper which he calls the Stingin' Lizard.The Red Dog sheet ain't a marker to Colonel Sterett's Coyote, an' it's the yooniversal idee in Wolfville, after ca'mly comparin' the two papers, that Colonel Sterett as a editor can simply back that Red Dog person plumb off the ground.

"It ain't no time before Colonel Sterett an' the Red Dog editor takes to cirklin' for trouble, an' the frightful names they applies to each other in their respectif journals, an' the accoosations an'

them epithets they hurls, would shore curdle the blood of a grizzly b'ar.

"An' as if to complicate the sityooation for that onhappy sport who's gettin' out the Red Dog Stingin' Lizard, he begins to have trouble local.Thar's a chuck-shop at Red Dog--it's a plumb low j'int; I never knows it to have any grub better than beans, salt pig an' airtights,--which is called the Abe Lincoln House, an' is kept by a party named Pete Bland.Which this yere Bland also owns a goat, the same bein' a gift of a Mexican who's got in the hole to Bland an' squar's accounts that a-way.

"This goat is jest a simple-minded, every-day, common kind of a goat; but he's mighty thorough in his way, allers on the hustle, an'

if he ever overlooks a play, no one don't know it.One day, when the Red Dog editor is printin' off his papers, up comes the goat, an'

diskyardin' of the tin-can which he's chewin', he begins debauchin'

of himse'f with this yere edition of the Stingin' Lizard.It's mighty soon when the editor discovers it an' lays for the goat permiscus; he goes to chunkin' of him up a whole lot.The goat's game an' declar's himse'f, an' thar starts a altercation with the editor an' the goat, of which thar's no tellin' the wind-up, an'

which ends only when this yere Bland cuts in, an' the goat's drug Borne.The paper is stopped an' the editor puts in this:

"Our presses are stopped to-day to say that if the weak-minded person who maintains the large, black goat which infests our streets, does not kill the beast, we will.To-day, while engaged in working off our mammoth edition out back of our building, the thievish creature approached unnoticed and consumed seventeen copies of the Stingin' Lizard.