Page:AH Lewis--Wolfville.djvu/322

282 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.'

"'This yere's a black-tail, which is different; says Lyin' Jim; 'it's exactly them front laigs you talks of so lightly I'm 'fraid of.

"'The buck he stands thar sorter dazed an' battin' of his eyes. I ain't no time to go back for my Sharp's, an' my six-shooter is left in camp. Right near is a high rock with a steep face about fifteen feet straight up an' down. I scrambles on to this an' breathes ag'in, 'cause I knows no deer is ever compiled yet who makes the trip. The buck's come to complete by now, an' when