I tried
to make talk. Seen a queer looking fob he wore for his watch pocket.
Asked him where he got it.
"'Tell you about it,' he says. 'Comes from me being plumb peaceable.' I
remembered some of the things I'd heard about Red Perris in Glosterville
and didn't say nothing. I just swallowed hard and took a squint at a
cloud. 'Four or five years back,' he says, 'when they was more liquor
and ambition floating around these parts, I was up in a little
cross-roads saloon in Utah, near Gunterville. Saloon was pretty jammed
with folks, all strangers to me. I wasn't packing a gun. Never do when I'm
in a crowd, if I can help it. Well, I got into a little game of stud, and
things were running pretty easy for me when a big gent across the table
that had been losing hard and drinking hard ups and says he allows I
sure have the cards talking. It sort of riled me. I tell him pretty
liberal what I think of him and all like him. I go back into the past
and give him a nice little description all about his ancestors. I aim to
wind up with an invite to step outside and have it out with fists, but
he don't wait. Right in the middle of my sermon he outs with a gat and
blazes away at me.
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