Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/245

 I draws my hand away sudden and flies to Cheviot. Now Cheviot saw at once I was disgnuntled, and he asked me what was wrong, and after caunsiderable pressure on his side, for I hated to give a duchess away, I told him the trewth, and he said I'd better fly, for she was very haughty and caunsiderable experienced, and much given to havin' her own way; which he said was very usual with duchesses, especially when they was dowagers, which is a kind or specie of duchess. And so I packed up my gun and my tooth-brush and returned him his white-shirt soot. But that he wouldn't hear of. He presented it to me, and said I'd oblige him if I'd take it, and with it another gun; and I took 'em. And then Cheviot said I'd always be welcome at his caystle, and that next time he'd see the duchess was engaged elsewhere. And we shook and parted; and as I was goin' he gave me a letter to the superintendent of his raynch up to the Staked Plain, which said that he was to give me the ch'ice of all horses on the raynch except the superintendent's own. And that letter's in my pocket, and I reckon to show it on that raynch