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The next day Missis Rucker sets tables all over her dinin’-room an’ brings on her beans. Eighteen Red Dog gents is thar, each totin’ of a can of tomatters. An’ let me impart right yere, son, we never has a more free an’ peacefuller day than said Thanksgivin’.

“‘Them beans is a little hard, ain’t they?’ says Doc Peets, while we-alls is eatin’, bein’ p’lite an’ elegant like. ‘Mebby they don’t get b’iled s’fficient?’

“‘Them beans is all right,’ says the War Chief of the Red Dogs. ‘They be some hard, but you can’t he’p it none. It’s the altitood; the higher up you gets, the lower heat it takes to b’ile water. So it don’t mush up beans like it should.’

“‘That’s c’rrect every time,’ says Enright; ‘I mind bein’ over back of Prescott once, an’ up near timber-line, an’ I can’t b’ile no beans at all. I’m up that high the water is so cold when it b’iles that ice forms on it some. I b’iles an’ b’iles on some beans four days, an’ it don’t have no more effect than throwin’ water on a drowned rat. After persistent b’ilin’, I skims out a hand. ful an’ drops ’em onto a tin plate to test ’em, an’ it sounds like buckshot. As you says, it’s the altitood.’

“‘Gents,’ says the boss of Red Dog, all of a sudden, an’ standin’ up by Enright, ‘I offers the toast: “Wolfville an’ Red Dog, now an’ yereafter.”‘

“Of course we-alls drinks, an’ Doc Peets makes a talk. He speaks mighty high of every gent present; which compliments gets big action in sech a game. The Red Dog chief–an’ he’s a mighty civilized- lookin’ gent–he talks back, an’ calls Wolfville an’ Red Dog great commercial centers, which they sore be. He says, ‘We-alls is friendly to-day, an’ fights the rest of the year,’ which we-alls agrees to cordial. He says fightin’. or, as he calls it, ‘a generous rivalry,’ does camps good, an’ I reckons he’s right, too, ’cause it shore results in the cashin’ in of some mighty bad an’ disturbin’ elements. When he sets down, thar’s thunders of applause.

“It’s by this time that the drinkin’ becomes frequent an’ common. The talk gets general, an’ the lies them people evolves an’ saws off on each other would stampede stock.

“Any day but Thanksgivin’ sech tales would shore lead to reecriminations an’ blood; but as it is, every gent seems relaxed an’ onbuckled that a-way in honor of the hour, an’ it looks like lyin’ is expected.

“How mendacious be them people? If I recalls them scenes c’rrectly, it’s Texas Thompson begins the campaign ag’in trooth.

“This yere Texas Thompson tells, all careless-like, how ‘way back in the forties, when he’s a boy, he puts in a Thanksgivin’ in the Great Salt Lake valley with Old Jim Bridger. This is before the Mormons opens their little game thar.

“‘An’ the snow falls to that extent, mebby it’s six foot deep,’ says Texas. ‘Bridger an’ me makes snow-shoes an’ goes slidin’ an’ pesterin’ ’round all fine enough. But the pore animals in the valley gets a rough time.

“‘It’s a fact; Bridger an’ me finds a drove of buffalos bogged down in the snow,–I reckons now thar’s twenty thousand of ’em,–and never a buffalo can move a wheel or turn a kyard. Thar they be planted in the snow, an’ only can jest wag their y’ears an’ bat their eyes.

“‘Well, to cut it brief, Bridger an’ me goes projectin’ ’round an’ cuts the throats of them twenty-thousand buffalo; which we-alls is out for them robes a whole lot. Of course we don’t skin ’em none while they’s stuck in the snow; but when the snow melts in the spring, we capers forth an’ peels off the hides like shuckin’ peas. They’s froze stiff at the time, for the sun ain’t got ’round to thaw the beef none yet; an’ so the meat’s as good as the day we downs ’em.