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134 "An' tharupon them rustlers, notin' Jack's got the drop on 'em, kicks up a dense cloud of dust an is seen no more.

"But bein' replete with sand an' 'nitiative, that a-way, don't state all thar is good of Jack. Let any pore, he'pless party cut Jack's trail, an' he's plumb tender. On sech times Jack's a dove; leastwise he's a dove a whole lot.

"One hot afternoon, Enright an' Doc Peets is away about some cattle I reckons. Which the rest of us is noomerous enough; an' we're sorter revolvin' 'round the post-office, a-waitin' for Old Monte an' the stage. Yere she comes, final, a-rattlin' an' a-creakin'; that old drunkard Monte a-poppin' of his whip, the six hosses on the canter, an' the whole sheebang puttin' on more dog than a Mexican officer of revenoo. When the stage draws up, Old Monte throws off the mailbags an' the Wells-Fargo box, an' gets down an' opens the door. But nobody emerges out.

"'Well, I'm a coyote!' says Monte, a heap disgusted, 'wherever is the female?'

"Then we-alls peers into the stage an' thar's only a baby, with mebby a ten-months' start down this vale of tears, inside; an' no mother nor nothin' along. Jack Moore, jest as I says when I begins, reaches in an' gets him. The baby ain't sayin' nothin', an' sorter takes it out in smilin' on Jack; which last pleases him excessive.

"'He knows me for a hundred dollars!' says