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332 bein', after all, timid cattle; an' so none of us s'spects Crawfish is packin' any sech s'prises. None of the boys about town knows of Crawfish havin' this bull-snake habit but me, nohow. So the old man stampedes'round an' buys what he's after, an' all goes well. Nobody ain't even dreamin' of reptiles.

"At last Crawfish, havin' turned his little game for flour, air-tights, an' jig-juice, as I says, gets into the Red Light, an' braces up ag'in the bar an' calls for nose-paint all 'round. This yere is proper an' p'lite, an' everybody within hearin' of the yell lines up.

"It's at this crisis Crawfish Jim starts in to make himse'f a general fav'rite. Everybody's slopped out his perfoomery, an' Dan Boggs is jest sayin': 'Yere's lookin' at you, Crawfish,' when that crazy-boss shepherd sorter swarms 'round inside his shirt with his hand, an' lugs out Julius Cesar be the scruff of his neck, a-squirmin' an' a-blowin', an' madder'n a drunken squaw. Once he gets Julius out, he spreads him 'round profuse on the Red Light bar an' sorter herds him with his hand to keep him from chargin' off among the bottles.

"'Gents,' says this locoed Crawfish, 'I ain't no boaster, but I offers a hundred to fifty, an' stands to make it up to a thousand dollars in wool or sheep, Julius Cæsar is the fattest an' finest serpent in Arizona; also the best behaved.'