Page:AH Lewis--Wolfville.djvu/90

60 compare tharwith; an' when she gets her black eyes on our lieutenant, that settles it; we rounds up at her hacienda an' goes into camp.

"'Besides the lieutenant thar's six of us. One of 'em's a shorthorn who matches me for age; which his name's Willis—Jim Willis.

"'Now I ain't out to make no descriptions of the friendship which goes on between this yere Willis an' me. I sees a show one time when I'm pesterin' 'round back in St. Looey—an' I'm yere to remark I don't go that far east no more—which takes on about a couple of sports who's named Damon an' Pythias. Them two people's all right, an' game. An' they shore deems high of one another. But at the time I sees this yere Damon an' Pythias, I says to myse'f, an' ever since I makes onhesitatin' assertion tharof, that the brotherly views them two gents entertains ain't a marker to Jim Willis an' me.

"'This yere Jim I knows since we're yearlin's. We-alls jumps outen the corral together back in Tennessee, an' goes off into this Mexican war like twins. An' bein' two boys that a-way among a band of men, I allows thar ain't nothin' before, nor then, nor after. which I loves like Jim.

"'As I observes, Jim an' me's in the outfit when this yere lieutenant comes trackin' 'round that Princess of Casa Grande; which her love for him is a bluff an' a deadfall; an' the same