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218 in my case is mighty likely to be a bluff. An' so I passes it up.

"'You sees,' says Boggs, 'thar's no good tryin' to hold out kyards on your Redeemer. If your heart ain't right it's no use to set into the game. No cold deck goes. He sees plumb through every kyard you holds, an' nothin' but a straight deal does with Him. Nacherally, then, I thinks—bein' as how you can't bluff your way into heaven, an' recallin' the bad language I uses workin' them cattle—I won't even try. An' that's why, when resolvin' one winter to get religion mebby next June, I persists in my sinful life.

"'It's over to Taos I acquires this religious idee. I'm come new to the camp from some'ers down 'round Seven Rivers in the Pecos country, an' I don't know a gent. Which I'm by nacher gregar'ous; so not knowin' folks that a-way weighs on me; an' the first night I'm thar, I hastens to remedy this yere evil. I'm the possessor of wealth to a limit,—for I shore despises bein' broke complete, an' generally keeps as good as a blue stack in my war-bags,—an' I goes projectin' 'round from dance-hall to baile, an' deciminates my dinero an' draws to me nose-paint an' friends. As thar ain't but three gin-mills, incloosive of the hurdy-gurdy, I'm goin' curvin' in them grand rounds which I institoots, on a sort of triangle.

"'Which it can't be said I don't make runnin' of it, however; I don't reckon now it's mor'n an