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A Wolfville Thanksgiving
by
“‘An’ that brings us to the cur’ous part. As fast as we-alls peels a buffalo, we rolls his carcass down hill into Salt Lake, an’ what do you-alls reckons takes place? The water’s that briny, it pickles said buffalo-meat plumb through, an’ every year after, when Bridger an’ me is back thar–we’re trappin’ an’ huntin’ them times,–all we has to do is haul one of them twenty thousand pickled buffalos ashore an’ eat him.
“‘When the Mormons comes wanderin’ along, bein’ short on grub that a-way, they nacherally jumps in an’ consooms up the whole outfit in one season, which is why you-alls don’t find pickled buffalo in Salt Lake no more.
“‘Bridger an’ me starts in, when we learns about it, to fuss with them polygamists that a-way for gettin’ away with our salt buffalos. But they’s too noomerous for us, an’ we done quits ’em at last an’ lets it go.’
“Nobody says much when Texas Thompson is through. We merely sets ’round an’ drinks. But I sees the Red Dog folks feels mortified. After a minute they calls on their leadin’ prevaricator for a yarn. His name’s Lyin’ Jim Riley, which the people who baptizes him shorely tumbles to his talents.
“This yere Lyin’ Jim fills a tin cup with nose-paint, an’ leans back listless-like an’ looks at Enright.
“‘I never tells you-alls,’ he says, ‘about how the Ratons gets afire mighty pecooliar, an’ comes near a-roastin’ of me up some, do I? It’s this a-way: I’m pervadin’ ’round one afternoon tryin’ to compass a wild turkey, which thar’s bands of ’em that Fall in the Ratons a-eatin’ of the pinyon-nuts. I’ve got a Sharp’s with me, which the same, as you-alls knows, is a single-shot, but I don’t see no turks, none whatever. Now an’ then I hears some little old gobbler, ‘cross a canyon, a-makin’ of sland’rous remarks about other gobblers to some hen he’s deloodin’, but I never manages a shot. As I’m comin’ back to camp–I’m strollin’ down a draw at the time where thar’s no trees nor nothin’–thar emanates a black-tail buck from over among the bushes on the hill, an’ starts to headin’ my way a whole lot. His horns is jest gettin’ over bein’ velvet, an’ he’s feelin’ plenty good an’ sassy. I sees that buck–his horns eetches is what makes him–jump eighteen feet into the air an’ comb them antlers of his’n through the hangin’ pine limbs. Does it to stop the eetchin’ an’ rub the velvet off. Of course I cuts down on him with the Sharp’s. It’s a new gun that a-way, an’ the sights is too coarse–you drags a dog through the hind sights easy–an’ I holds high. The bullet goes plumb through the base of his horn, close into the ha’r, an’ all nacheral fetches him sprawlin’. I ain’t waitin’ to load my gun none, which not waitin’ to load, I’m yere to mention, is erroneous. I’m yere to say thar oughter be an act of Congress ag’in not loadin’ your gun. They oughter teach it to the yearlin’s in the schools, an’ likewise in the class on the Sabbath. Allers load your gun. Who is that sharp, Mister Peets, who says, “Be shore you’re right, then go ahead”? He once ranches some’ers down on the Glorieta. But what he oughter say is: “Be shore your gun’s loaded, then go ahead.”‘
“‘That’s whatever!’ says Dan Boggs, he’pin’ himse’f an’ startin’ the bottle; ‘an’ if he has a lick of sense, that’s what he would say.’
“‘Which I lays down my empty gun,’ goes on this Lyin’ Jim, ‘ an’ starts for my buck to bootcher his neck a lot. When I gets within ten feet he springs to his hoofs an’ stands glarin’. You can gamble, I ain’t tamperin’ ’round no wounded buck. I’d sooner go pesterin’ ’round a widow woman.’
“‘I gets mingled up with a wounded buck once,’ says Dave Tutt, takin’ a dab of paint, ‘an’ I nacherally wrastles him down an’ lops one of his front laigs over his antlers, an’ thar I has him; no more harm left in him than a chamber-maid. Mine’s a white-tailed deer over on the Careese.’