Chapter I: Part 1

THE DOMESTICATION OF DOBIE

by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Making Good for Muley,” “Tied Up for Tombstone,” etc.

Mesquite City, June 10.

DEAR HANK:

I ain’t much of a hand to express myself on paper, but I promised to drop you a line, so when you receive this you will know that I am still keeping my word.

Me and Emmeline are O. K. and I hope these few lines will find you the same also. Hank, I want to ask you a question if you know who it was that threw that boot at me and Emmeline when we was getting on the train that night?

I ain’t so mad now as I was then, ’cause I’m mostly all heeled up but I’d like to know who throwed that boot, ’cause there was a spur on it. I got spurred along the ear and bled like a stuck hog. I know it’s the custom to throw old shoes, etc., at a wedding but no man is a gentleman and a skolar what won’t take his spurs off first. Suppose it had hit Em instead of me?

I think it was “Windy” Wilson, and I think it so hard that I don’t mind telling you confidential that he’s a horse-stealing coyote. He ain’t got no principle, Hank, and if he ever washed his feet his own dog couldn’t trail him.

I know you won’t tell him I said so, Hank, but if it happens to leak out I’ll back you up for every word. Me and Emmeline get along fine so far. But I don’t mind telling you that no man ought to marry any girl before he knows more about her. Me and Em didn’t know each other only a few months, and I’m sorry we didn’t find out some things, Hank. I ain’t knocking Emmeline, you understand. She’s a good girl with no bad habits, but me and her relatives ain’t exactly sleeping under the same blanket.

You know, Hank, that I had a good job there on the Lazy Y, but Em didn’t want to live around there and she told me that if I would leave there she’d see that I got a good job from her uncle. I ain’t no jibber, Hank, as you know, and my motter is to live and let live and right don’t wrong no man, but when I finds out that her uncle owns a lot of sheep I talks right out loud in church.

I didn’t say nothing against a sheep, ’cause a sheep ain’t no more to blame for being a sheep than Windy is to blame for not having any brains, but it makes me mad to think that he offers me forty a month to herd same.

Her uncle’s name is Gabriel Galesburg, and he’s built like a hay-rack. Honest his whiskers are almost a pink color, Hank, and he seems to think more of them than he does of his wife. I asked him if he didn’t get them from sleeping out in the rain with a red blanket wrapped around his face, and he changed the subject by saying—

“It often strikes me that the world is full of chances to be funny without being personal.”

He never did tell me if I was right, Hank. There is folks you can’t never pin right down to a answer. Me and Em are living with them but I don’t know for how long. Uncle asked me the other day if we expected to make our home with them or just be boarders and roomers at their house, but I ain’t answered him yet. We only been here three weeks, and I ain’t done much since I got married.

I met Bob Pelkey here the other day. You remember Bob, don’t you? He used to rustle cows up around the border, and afterward he sort of got religion and quit his erring ways. He’s dealing a stud poker game here in Mesquite and wearing diamonds. Me and him proceeds to talk over old times. We drapes over the Palace bar long enough to toast both sides of the country to a nice brown color.

I tells him about Emmeline and he wants to meet her so bad that I takes him up to supper with me. Emmeline got sore like a fool and gets me out alone on the porch.

“Ain’t you got no sense?” she says to me. “This ain’t your house and what right you got bringing drunk tin-horns up here to supper to insult me and Aunt Phoebe? That critter is asleep in there on the sofy.”

“I’m going in and congratulate him,” says I. “Anybody what can get drunk enough to sleep on that infernal sofy has my utmost respect. It ain’t nothing but a lot of busted springs and hay, and anybody what can ride it without a bucking-strap ought to have a job with Buffalo Bill’s circus. And what is more if he’s drunk enough to try and sleep there he’s too drunk to insult anybody.”

You know how I can talk back to anybody, Hank.

“You go right in there and throw him out,” says she.

Now ain’t that just like a woman, Hank? Drink up a man’s money, take him home to supper and then have your wife want him throwed out ’cause he goes to sleep on the sofy. Why, I wouldn’t do that to Windy, and what I wouldn’t do to Windy would be awful to think about. I promised to obey Emmeline when the preacher asked me to, Hank, but there wasn’t nothing said about me acting as household bouncer. She keeps on getting so mad that I feels sorry for her, Hank.

“You wimmen folks keep away,” says I, “and I’ll do the throwing.”

Her and her aunt shuts themselves up in the kitchen, and I went in where Bob is snoring on the sofy, and sets down beside him. He’s got a bottle in his coat pocket, and I was afraid it would get busted when I throwed him out, so I drank part of it and cached the rest behind the clock.

I don’t think yet that I throwed him out, but I can’t seem to remember much about it. I remember hearing somebody say something about hogs, and then somebody throwed me outdoors and I skinned my face on a rock. It made me so darned mad that I crawled out from under Bob and went down-town. That was the first time I ever got throwed out of my own house and it makes me awful sore, Hank. Of course some will argue that it wasn’t my house, but I considered it as such.

A little later I meets uncle down-town and he stops me.

“Young feller,” says he, “you better keep away from that house until you can act decent. You can’t sponge on me and disgrace my fambly any more. I don’t mind feeding the appetite of a horse, but when said horse brings that ass of a Pelkey along to be fed, too, I won’t stand for it. Also if you get drunk again Emmeline is through with you.”

Then I says to him, Hank, and I was sore:

“Mister Galesburg, there’s two sides to the argument. I suppose my wife told you about it, and a woman always exaggerates things. I suppose she told you that me and Bob was drunk, didn’t she? I think so. Just because Bob was all tired out and went to sleep on the sofy she took it for granted that he was drunk as a boiled owl. He wasn’t no more drunk than I was. Sabe?”

“Well,” says he, “maybe you’re right, but I don’t think so, ’cause he laid there for twenty minutes after you left for down-town. I throwed you both out, so I ought to know.”

That’s the kind of a uncle she’s got, Hank. Can you blame me when I say that a feller ought to know more about a girl’s folks before he takes her for keeps? You know me, Hank, and you know I’m a pretty decent sort of a person. There ain’t nothing vishous about me and I’m full of the milk of human kindness but there are some things that I can’t stand for.

I had thirty-two dollars left but Emmeline has got that, and I owe Sam Fletcher two dollars for bed right now. I don’t know what I’ll decide to do for a living, Hank. Bob says he can get me a shift on the Faro layout here if I can put up a cash bond of a thousand dollars, but if I had a thousand dollars I’d hire a good lawyer and then take a shot at Uncle Gabriel for offering me forty a month to herd sheep, and I might have enough to plead not guilty if I happens to meet Windy face to face.

I ain’t asking for no loan, Hank, but if you can put yourself in my place you’ll see how I’m hooked up. I’m so mad at Emmeline and her fambly that I won’t ask them for a thing. Hoping these few lines will find you flush and good-hearted I beg to remane, very truly y’rs,

Dobie Dalton, care of Palace Hotel.

* * * * *

Mesquite City, June 18

DEAR HANK:

Didn’t you get my letter? If not I can say that I ain’t no better off than I was before I wrote you. I’m glad I didn’t write to Windy or “Hondo” Huddleson, ’cause I know they wouldn’t loan me two-bits if I was to give them a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces for security.

Honest, Hank, if air cost half a cent for a billion cubik miles them two fellers would smother to death inside of twenty seconds. I hates to think that I know anybody what is so tight.

I ain’t living at home yet, Hank, but I expect to soon. If a man’s place ain’t at his wife’s side where is it? A feller what herds sheep for Uncle Gabe is staying up at the house now and he’s a simp, Hank. His name is “Stony” Wells. I seen him and Emmeline, my wife, down at the store and he bought her some candy hearts. Any man is a simp what will buy candy hearts for a married woman, ain’t he, Hank?

It made me sore, Hank, for her to act like her husband didn’t have enough money and principal to buy candy for her, so I goes up to the house to chide her about it. Uncle Gabe comes to the door and sort of looks me over. Hank, that feller has got a eye like a mean bronc what ain’t been showed the error of his ways. While I ain’t saying a word against Emmeline, you understand, I wish I had knowed more about her folks before the marriage.

“Can I do something for you?” he asks, like I was carrying a bunch of stuff to sell him at so much down and the rest in a minute.

“I come to see my wife, Mister Galesburg,” says I. “You don’t need to call her ’cause I’m coming inside.”

“Somebody must have give you the wrong steer, if you think so,” says he. “Did somebody tell you that you could bust into my house without a invite?”

Ain’t he a queer pelican, Hank? Just as though I has to ask somebody for a invitation to see my wife.

“Well,” says I, “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I wasn’t raised a pet, and I does some things no matter what the consequences. I’m free, white and twenty-one, and I’d admire to see you step to one side.”

He did, Hank. Emmeline has got sort of a loving disposition, and Aunt Phoebe ain’t no danged Nero, but when there’s so much sweetness in a fambly there has to be a little gall to balance things. Uncle Gabe steps to one side, as I orders him to, Hank, and when I starts to go past him he hits me so hard that I goes out near the front gate and stands on my head in a currant bush.

When I got up he’s standing there filling his pipe, and when he sees me go to my hip he grins like a over-grown pup. Honest, when he grins I think of a Airedale dog.

“You might imitate Aladdin,” says he. “Rub your shining lamp and wish for a gun. Badman from Bitter Crick soaked his gun for hooch, eh?”

I’m just about to give him the laugh, ’cause I didn’t soak my gun for booze at all, Hank, I let Sam Fletcher have it for room rent, when here comes Emmeline and Aunt Phoebe around the corner of the house.

“Dobie Dalton, you been fighting again!” says Emmeline, sort of mad-like, and I has to laugh, even if I am mad, ’cause the joke’s on her this time.

“Dear Emmeline,” says I, “you’re all wrong, ’cause I didn’t do a bit of it. I came up here to take you away with me, and that dog-faced relative of yours by marriage hit me without warning. I don’t want my sweet little wife to live in the same atmosphere with a sheep-herding cross between Jesse James and a timber-wolf.”

“Just where do you intend to take her?” asks Uncle Gabe, just as though it was any of his business and believe me, Hank, I told him where to head in at.

“Go get your hat on, Emmeline,” says I, “I’m going to take you with me like a married man ought to.”

“Go ahead with him, Em,” says he.

“The walk will do you good, and we’ll have supper ready at five.” Then he turned to me: “Where you going to put her—in a public corral? You ain’t got the price of a room.”

“Yes,” says Emmeline, “I would like to know where you are going to take me, Dobie.”

“Wife,” says I, just like that, Hank, “wife, I’m going to take you with me down to the post-office and maybe over to the depot, and then I’ll take you to the best hotel in the city.”

You see, Hank, I figured that as soon as you got my letter you would either send me a letter with some money in it or maybe telegraft some to me. You know I didn’t come right out and ask you for money, Hank, but I tried to hint strong enough for you to understand. I figured on it strong, but I must have figured wrong. Emmeline went over to the post-office with me and then over to the depot, but there wasn’t a thing, Hank. If you sent me anything it’s lost.

“Now,” says Emmeline, “let’s go up to the hotel, Dobie, I’m all tired out.”

Now, Hank, you see how trusting a friend can put you up against it. I makes a bluff and gets called, and I ain’t even got a face card to lay down on the table.

“Emmeline, my dear,” says I, “have you got any of that thirty-two dollars left?”

“I never had it, Dobie,” says she. “Didn’t you spend it?”

Dear Hank, this is the last sheet of paper I got, so I’ll have to tell you the rest later. Don’t let that thirty-two dollars scare you from sending me a little if you got it, ’cause I ain’t got that thirty-two dollars. Six-bits would look like a pirut’s hoard to me right now. If Windy or Hondo asks about me, Hank, you tell them I’m lousy with coin and doing well. If I have to sleep much longer at Sam Fletcher’s I’ll be lousy but not with wealth. Do you know what I’d do if I knowed you was facing starvation or sheep-herding, Hank? I am waiting to hear from you anxiously. Y’rs very truly,

Dobie Dalton, care of gen. del.

* * * * *

Mesquite City, June 25

DEAR HANK:

I reckon I can find time to write you a few lines to let you know how I am getting along, as I am not doing much running around and have lots of loose time.

Hank, are you sore at me? Sometimes I think I ain’t got no dependable friends left a-tall. I don’t claim that Windy or Hondo are friends of mine, but at that I don’t think they’d leave a feller in the lurch.

Remember in my last letter where I asks Emmeline where that thirty-two dollars is, Hank? And then she says just like this—

“Didn’t you spend it, Dobie?”

Well, sir, it hits me all of a sudden like a ton of bricks, and I remembers where that money is, Hank. It’s up at Uncle Gabriel’s house, hanging on the wall in my vest. I changed vests when I came here, ’cause I didn’t want to wear my Sunday suit all the time. I takes Em up to the hotel, and I asks her to set down in the parlor, while I asks the prop. for a sweet of rooms. Then I ducks out the back door and lopes off up to uncle’s place. I hammers on the door and Uncle Gabe opens up. He squints at me for quite a while, like I was somebody he can’t quite place, and then he sort of grins and says:

“Oh! I didn’t know you at first. You’ve changed a lot except in one eye. Did you come up to have them both made alike?”

“Peace be with you,” says I.

Hank, you know me and you know I ain’t no brawler nor hoodlum. I never can understand why a man as big as Uncle Gabe wants to range sheep.

“I came for a vest,” says I.

“The nights are getting a little cold for this time of year,” says he. “I’m about half out of vests, but I can let you have a saddle-blanket if you promise not to sell it for rum.”

“I ain’t asking for no darned charity,” says I. “I bought and paid for that vest, and just ’cause it happens to be hanging in your bungaloo ain’t no sign she’s your property. It ain’t the vest’s fault ’cause I’ll bet if it could walk it wouldn’t wait for me to come up here after it.”

“What kind of a looking garment was it?” he asks.

“Well,” says I, “I expected to have to describe it, ’cause good clothes are strange to a sheep-herder. It’s red and yellow checks, got buttons down the front on one side, four pockets and a place for each arm.”

“Oh!” says he, “So that’s what it was. I heard a lot of noise in that room, but I thought it was a flock of pack-rats. It will be a pleasure to get it out of the house. I’ll chase it out to you.”

He shuts the door in my face, Hank. Pretty soon he comes back, with a sad look on his face, and shakes his head:

“I’m sorry,” says he. “Sorry for Stony Wells. He left here this morning, and Aunt Phoebe says he took a fancy to that garment. She thought it was an old one and she gave it to him. He’ll stampede all my sheep.”

“Somebody owes me thirty-two dollars,” says I, after a while.

“That’s nice,” says he. “You won’t miss one vest so much then,” and he shuts the door in my face, Hank.

What could I do, Hank? Thirty-two dollars all shot to thunder. I sure wanted to bust that door open and clean out that fambly, but under the circumstances how could I? Even if he is a villain, Hank, he is still my wife’s relative by marriage, and I hates scenes, arguments and brawls.

When I has to fight, Hank, I’m a true sportsman, and I don’t want to lower myself to the level of fighting with shepherds. You know me, old-timer, and you know that my motter is let well enough alone. I’d rather starve than to do anybody a injury, so I tries to saunter away like the loss of that vest didn’t mean nothing to me, and I ain’t sauntered far when I meets Emmeline.

“Does the owner of the hotel live up here?” she asks, sarcastic-like.

“Or did you forget where you left me?”

“Wife,” says I, “wife, please pardon me, but I was coming right back.”

“Yes, and left me there to be insulted!” she snaps. “Mister Fletcher came in the room just after you left, and I asked him if Mister Dalton had got a sweet of rooms here yet. He didn’t know me, and he said: ‘Madam, I hope not. If Dobie Dalton ever gets a sweet of rooms here he’s got Raffles beat sixteen ways from the jack.’ He said that if you ever got hold of a two-bit piece you’d think it was so big that you’d hire a dray to haul it around in.”

What’s the use of arguing with a woman, Hank? Take the advice of a married man and don’t never do it. I said to her:

“Honey, it’s too late now to listen to things against your husband. If you live a while longer you’ll find lots of scandal-mongers who will try and knock your husband, but the best thing to do is to turn a deef ear to their voices. You go on up to Uncle Gabe’s and stay inside out of the noise, ’cause your legitimate protector is going right down-town and make somebody eat their words.”

“Don’t you never think of nothing but fight?” she asks. “If you’d use some of your energy in work we’d be better off. Either do that or join the army.”

“Well, Emmeline,” says I, “if that’s the way you feel about it I won’t go down and beat their heads off. I was just going to do it on your acc’t, but if you don’t wish me to I won’t.”

I didn’t, Hank. A promise is a promise with me, and when I tell you I ain’t going to lick nobody you can bank on my word. Remember that gold watch I won at Pendleton, when I rode Outlaw? It’s been bucked out of my pocket so often that it don’t keep no more time than a rabbit, but just the same I’m sleeping on it, Hank. Sam Fletcher gave me three nights’ room rent free for it, and I still got one night coming. Don’t know when I’ll collect, but it’s nice to have something coming to you. I felt the same about your letters, Hank, but I never got any.

Now I’m going to tell you a secret, Hank. Don’t tell Hondo or Windy, and when you get in the same fix I’ll keep my mouth shut. I never told my right name, but I reckon they’ll find it out, ’cause they say there’s a detective on the case.

That day after Emmeline, my wife, goes back to Uncle Gabriel’s I goes down to the Palace saloon. I ain’t got a cent, Hank, but once in a while a feller comes along what don’t like to drink alone. Two of them came this time. They’re punchers from over in the Blue Joint country. One is named “Blazer” and the other “Sleepy.”

I has quite a few drinks with them and then they sets up the supper to me. I told them how I’m fixed, Hank. I told them about the suffering I been undergoing, and they’re sympathetic you bet. We’re up in their room when I tells them about it, and one of them shed tears.

“If my folks treated me thataway I’d get desperate,” states Blazer. “I wouldn’t care how I got money just so I got it.”

“You’re darn right,” agrees Sleepy. “I’d show up that bunch if I had to rob a bank to get the money.”

“I ain’t got no gun,” I reminds them. “You can’t do no bank robbery if you ain’t got no gun.”

Well, Hank, what do you think? Blazer hauls out a gun and hands it to me. “Here,” says he. “I got another one.”

I sure took it, Hank. She’s a .45, single-action Colt, and hangs just like my old one. We sets there on the bed and has a few more drinks out of a bottle.

“Good banks are scarce,” states Sleepy, “mostly always they ain’t worth your time, but when you does hit a good one you’re fixed to be lazy quite a while. What kind of a bank they got here?”

I tells them that I don’t know, but in a thriving community there ought to be some money. Blazer peeks out in the hall to see if anybody is listening, and then he says to me:

“Dobie,” just like he knowed me as long as you have, Hank, “Dobie, let us solve your problem. We’re friends in need. Sabe? We’ll keep under cover and let you do the scout work. Tomorrow you go into the bank, sort of casual-like, and look it over for us. See how she frames for doors, windows, safes and so forth. A man of your perceptions and standing in the community ought to be able to stroll in there and see it all at a glance. If you wasn’t an intelligent looking person, and packing a lot of brains I’d never let you do it, but you got a lot of sabe, old-timer, and you seems to know human nature to the core. How does she suit you?”

“Money is the prime objection to me right now,” says I. “I ain’t got no place to sleep and nothing to eat upon.”

Hank, them fellers were perfect gentlemen. They immediate and soon hands me a five-spot, and don’t even want a mortgage on my life in security. I wish that Windy and Hondo could see how them fellers acted, ’cause it would be a lesson to them in generosity.

The next day I wanders into the bank, and I plays my part so well that I even talks with the man what handles the money. I looks that place over fine, and when I tells Sleepy and Blazer what I seen they are tickled stiff.

“Tomorrow night,” states Sleepy. “From now on until then you keep away from us, Dobie, so nobody can say that you was in with us if we get caught. We’ll all meet here tomorrow night at 9 o’clock, and then inside half an hour you can buy some sheep of your own. Sabe?”

I has to laugh after I left them, Hank, ’cause the joke’s on them if they think I’m going to buy sheep. Of course I knowed he was joking but if he wasn’t, Hank, I’d make him hard to catch.

I seen them in the High Light saloon that night, playing pool, but they don’t act like they ever seen me before, which was the proper wrinkle. I look at them like I don’t know them from Adam’s off ox, and they both nods, like I done the right thing. That night I oils up that old gun and prepares for tomorrow night.

But, Hank, I has a dream that night that sure changed things. I dreamed that I was wearing a striped suit, and was breaking rocks. And Uncle Gabriel is watching over me with a Winchester, and when I don’t break them fast enough he prods me in the wishbone with the gun barrel. I wakes up in a cold sweat and my whole future is changed, while I lays there and thinks things over.

Suppose I get caught, Hank? What will become of Emmeline? Without no strong arm upon which to lean what’s she going to do? If the law grabs away the protector what’s to become of the women and children? You know me, Hank, and you know I always thinks of the right thing at the right time. Thinks I like this: if I sneak over to the bank early, Blazer and Sleepy won’t see me, and I can tip the whole thing off to the banker. A thousand dollars or two rewards in the hand is worth a lot of money in a safe. Hank, I don’t like no squealer. I ain’t the kind what fattens on nobody’s misery, but I figure that right don’t wrong nobody.

The next morning early I sneaks out the back way and goes down to the bank. I walks right inside, and there ain’t nobody there but the man what runs the place. He looks me over, chilly-like, and says—

“The bank ain’t open for business yet.”

“It is for my business,” says I, grinning at him. “You can thank your luck that a honest man is facing you, and any other rewards you may mention will be accepted, for what I’m going to tell you. Tomorrow night me and two other fellers are going to rob this bank.”

“Wait a minute,” says he, and then he leads me into a separate room.

“Now,” says he, “go ahead where you left off.”

I told him all about our plans and specifications and he seems real interested. I tells him how slick I was in getting the plans of the place, and when I gets through he says to me:

“You set right here for a little while. I’m going to get another party what will be interested in your story.”

Well, Hank, he’s gone about the length of two cigarets, and then he comes back with the sheriff.

“You planned this robbery, did you?” asks the sheriff.

“You bet I did,” says I.

“I’ll just take you along with me,” says he, taking me by the arm.

“You’re too wise to be loose on an unsuspecting community.”

“Wait a minute, Mister Man,” says I, “you’re too hasty. I’m the honest one of the bunch, and I don’t go to jail. I’m turned honest. Sabe?”

“Yes,” says he, “you may be honest, young feller, but you didn’t turn honest soon enough. The bank was robbed last night.”

Now, wouldn’t that frost you, Hank? Them fellers must have got their days mixed, ’cause they sure picked the wrong night. They got three thousand dollars in paper money and about a thousand in gold.

Well, Hank, I don’t know of any news to write, so will close. I ain’t got much of anything to do, so I’ll write you again maybe. Don’t tell Windy or Hondo. Write to me in care of gen. del., sheriff’s office, courthouse.

y’rs very truly

Patrick Antonio Schmidt.

P. S. This is the name I gave.

* * * * *

Mesquite City, July 8

DEAR HANK:

Well, Hank, I am out of jail again, the same of which will likely please you. My trial was a farce, as it should have been, and I was vindicated of wrong-doing as I expected. Right will always come out on top.

Have you seen Windy or Hondo lately, Hank? I sure got the deadwood on them Jaspers. The lawyers sent up there for some character witnesses, and I’ll be darned if they didn’t get Windy and Hondo. Hank, for a minute I could feel the rope under my left ear, when them two walks into the jail to see the sheriff. He was out but I was in, so they comes over to my room.

“Ain’t he the desperate thing, Hondo?” asks Windy, meaning me, and Windy says—

“I’d hate to meet him if I wasn’t heeled.”

So I says:

“What you two doing down here? Ain’t you tempting Providence pretty strong, getting inside of a jail this way?”

“We was supeenied as witnesses to your character, Dobie,” says Hondo.

“The law pays the freight all the way down here for us to answer whether we considers you a safe person to let loose.”

Hank, I feels as weak as sage tea for a minute, and I decides to talk as pleasant as possible to them, so I says—

“How is things around the home range now?”

“We don’t know,” says Windy, rolling a cigaret one-handed. “Me and Hondo just got in from a hunting trip over in Flathead country.”

“Never killed a darn thing either,” states Hondo. “No game.”

“See anybody you know over there?” I asks, and they shakes their heads.

“Nope,” says Windy, “never seen a darn soul, and we was gone three weeks.”

“That’s good,” says I. “Now, you two lying, currycomb artists better not hand me any the worst of it in court or I’ll swear that you was the two what robbed that bank. What about my character now?”

They thinks it over for a while, and then Windy cusses low-like:

“You sure are lily white and all wool, Dobie,” states Windy. “Ain’t he the upright person, Hondo?”

“Not here,” I reminds them. “Tell it to the judge.”

“Uh-huh,” agrees Hondo. “We’ll sure lie to beat ——, but as soon as you get loose, Dobie, what we said in court don’t go.”

Well, Hank, them fellers sure done what I told them to. The lawyer says to Windy—

“What do you know about the defendant’s character?”

Windy says:

“If Dobie Dalton told me that he planned the robbery of that bank I’d know in a minute that he lied. He likely heard about it, tried to get in on the reward and also get a little notoriety. He’s weak-minded but harmless.”

The lawyer asks Hondo’s opinion, and he answers like this:

“I’ve knowed Dobie a long time, and nobody can ever convince me that he’s got the nerve to rob a magpie’s nest. He likely got too much hooch aboard and dreamed this thing. He’s only wicked in his mind.”

You see, Hank, I has them fellers complete under my control, and they has to say things they don’t want to. Nobody can say a word about my character, but with such liars as them it’s best to have a cinch on their testimony.

All my fambly are in the court-room, and Uncle Gabe acts like he was enjoying it a lot. The judge got me up there and asks me a lot of questions. He asks me how it was that I suffers change of heart before the time for the robbery. I didn’t dare to tell about that dream, on acc’t of Uncle Gabe being back there, so I tells him that I got to thinking about my poor little wife. Uncle Gabe roars right out in court, like this:

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

That makes the judge sore. He could see where it ain’t nothing to laugh at, and so could I. Well, Hank, they decides that there ain’t no evidence that I partook of the robbery, so they turns me loose.

Well, Hank, there ain’t no news to write, so I’ll close. It’s hard to write propped up in bed like this, when all your knuckles are skinned, and you got two black eyes and some almost busted ribs and several teeth missing. I happens to meet Windy and Hondo after the trial. If I don’t find that shepherd with my vest on I don’t know how the doctor is ever going to get paid. Write a little oftener, Hank. Do you still get paid on the first. Y’rs respectfully,

DOBIE DALTON.

care of gen. del.

P. S. I asked the postmaster if I could cash a money-order from you if I got one, and he said I likely could.

* * * * *

Mesquite City, July 15

DEAR HANK:

There ain’t no news to write, but as I ain’t got nothing else to do I will drop you a few lines so you will know I am alive. Have you got cramps in your fingers or are you too lazy to write? I thought that Windy and Hondo was the stingiest folks I ever knowed but maybe I’m wrong at that. Things are pretty fair with me, but I ain’t bought out no railroads nor nothing yet.

When I was laid up, Hank, I soaked that six-shooter to Sam Fletcher for some more night’s rest. He didn’t want to take it on acc’t of him having too many guns now, but so long as I ain’t got nothing else he accepts same. That doctor orates that I owe him twenty-five dollars for treating me. Hank, you know me, and you know that I never have nor never will try to sneak out of a debt. My word is as good as gold, and folks what know me good don’t ask nothing better than my promise, but when a strange doctor hounds you for a measly little am’t like that it makes you mad. He comes up to my room, and he says to me like this, Hank—

“You owe me twenty-five dollars, and I want it.”

Says I to him:

“There ain’t nothing unreasonable about that. You wait down-stairs until I dress and I’ll come down and pay you.”

Hank, I couldn’t buy a grave for a microbe, so I lets myself down out of the window, and tries to drop on to the roof of a shed. I hit the roof O. K. but it was one of them slanting roofs, and I skidded off and hit terry ferma.

When I opened my eyes, Hank, who do you think I seen? I was looking at Sleepy and Blazer. Honest, Hank, I was. They’re setting there on a box, looking at me, and I says to myself—

“Dobie, you thought you lived on the second floor, but you must have been mistaken, ’cause just falling two stories wouldn’t make you see things like these.”

“You’re a fine pal, you are,” says Blazer, sad-like. “Where’s our share?”

“Your share of what?” I asks.

“Of the money you got from the bank that night,” says Sleepy. “You must have got in a hurry to get rich. You can’t double-cross us, old-timer. Come across.”

“Ain’t it a sad state of affairs, Sleepy?” says Blazer. “Loan a man a gun to help you with a job, and never even get the gun back. You got to give him credit for being clever, though.”

He was right, Hank. You sure got to hand it to me for that. Maybe I don’t show a lot of brains in my face, but I sure got a lot of them under my hair. Them two fellers ain’t common ordinary bluffers like Windy and Hondo, so I got to think fast.

“I suppose you think I got the money here in my pocket, and all I got to do is spit on my thumb and count out your share,” says I, sarcastic-like.

“Now you’ve commenced to say something, Dobie,” says Sleepy. “Where do you wish us to go, and how long will it take you to hand us one thousand, three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three and a third cents per each?”

“You wouldn’t go where I’d tell you to,” says I, “and at forty a month you can figure how long it will be before you collect.”

Hank, them fellers ain’t got no sense of humor, and their sense of fair play is nothing to look at. I can say this much though: what Windy and Hondo forgot to do them fellers done to the queen’s taste. I hate to go back to that doctor again, so I suffers in silence and alone.

Maybe you don’t know how it is, Hank, never having been married, but when a married man is sorely wounded he hankers for the light touch of a woman’s gentle hand and so forth. I gets out of the hen-house, wherein I had been cast, and picks my way up to Uncle Gabriel’s.

Emmeline and Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Gabriel are out on the porch when I show up, and they all stand up when I get there.

“Well!” says Uncle Gabriel, “you must have handed an oncore to Windy and Hondo. We thought you was all heeled up again.”

“I was,” says I. “This was done by two other strong men.”

“That explains it then,” says he, setting down again. “’cause I wondered how in thunder one man could do all that. Nothing small about you, Dobie—picking them two at a time.”

“No,” says I, “I ain’t no piker, and I never picks on a man what is smaller than I am.”

I said this for his benefit, Hank. You know I can always think of something funny to say at the right time, but at that, Hank, there ain’t no fun in springing a good joke on a shepherd, ’cause all he said was:

“I had a dog like that once. He spent all his short life hunting for two dogs that he could whip at the same time. He never got a reputation as a fighter at that—everybody considered him loco.”

“I didn’t come up here to talk about dogs,” says I. “I came up here to plead for succor.”

“I’m glad you called yourself that, Dobie,” says he, “’cause it shows you’ve commenced to get a glimmering of sense. When you going to take that job herding sheep and support your wife?”

“You really ought to do something now, Dobie,” says Aunt Phoebe.

“I’m handicapped,” says I, “I ain’t got no gun and my stummick is so sore I can’t stoop over and pick up a rock. Wait until I gets normal and I’ll sure openly resent that offer, Mister Galesburg. If that is all the consolation you folks got to offer to a man in my condition I bids you all good-by.”

Hank, I turns around, feeble-like, and limps away. I ain’t quite to the gate when I hears Emmeline yell—

“Dobie, please for my sake, don’t get into no more fights.”

Emmeline ain’t no bad scout, Hank, and she still has some consideration for her husband’s feelings. I sneaks into the back door of the hotel, and goes up to my room but finds the door is locked.

Hank, that makes me mad. I ain’t no roughneck, and my motter is a place for everything and everything in its place, and it seems to me that it’s sort of out of place for them to lock my room up. I goes right down-stairs to give Sam Fletcher a piece of my mind, and in the office I runs into that blamed doctor. He’s been drinking, and when he sees me he waltzes right up and says—

“Mister Dalton, it took you a long time to—my——!”

He shoves his hat back on his head, and goes out of the door, talking to himself.

I sets down there on a chair and in a minute Sam Fletcher comes in and sets down at his desk behind the counter. He don’t pay no attention to me, and it makes me sore, Hank, ’cause I believe in service. So I walks right over and leans on the counter and says—

“Mister Fletcher, I’ll take my key.”

He turns and looks at me, Hank. I reckon he can see that I’m in earnest, ’cause he reaches right over, takes the key off the nail, and hands it to me without taking his eyes off my face.

“My ——!” says he, with his mouth open, like a trout out of water, “Doc Wylie must have practised on you with the reverse English!”

I went up to my room and takes a look at my face in the glass. I sure am something to look at in the face, and when I tell you that a Hamburger steak is a pleasant-looking mess beside my features I ain’t telling all I can see.

But there’s something to look forward to, Hank. I ain’t been down to the post-office for several days and I’m betting there’s a letter from you with some money in it. I’ll close now so I can post this when I go down. If Windy or Hondo tell you anything about me, you tell them that you heard they hopped me together and never gave me a chance. Them two can never be friends with me. Thanking you in advance for what I think I’m going to get, I beg to remain,

Very truly yours as ever,

Dobie Dalton, gen. del.

* * * * *

Mesquite City, July 20

MR. HENRY HAWKINS,

Dear Sir:

It is useless for me to tell you that there wasn’t no letters or money at the post-office for me, but I write to give you the satisfaction of knowing that I don’t care no more. You know as well as I do that it is a surprise to me to have my best friend turn me down like this. If it was Windy or Hondo I’d expect it. There ain’t no news so I won’t waste valuable paper on you. I got disgusted with this town, Hank. Since I came here I ain’t had nothing but vissitudes and grief, and when the feller, what runs the Antelope stage, asks me if I want to ride over with him I jumps at the chance.

Who do you think I runs into the first crack out of the box? Uncle Gabriel. He grins at me and asks me if I can’t find nobody left in Mesquite to fight with. I told him that I was looking for a place where men knowed enough about fair play to come one at a time. That left him dumfounded, Hank, so I went up to a saloon, and got dumfounded myself, when I runs into Windy and Hondo. There’s another feller with them and they’re all stewed, and having a hy-iu time.

Windy looks me over, in a serious way, and then says:

“Dobie, your blood must be in bad condition, ’cause you ain’t heeled up none since we hit you the first time. Go eat a dog-biscuit.”

Hank, I just happens to think what Emmeline told me not to do, so I turns the joke on them like this:

“Windy, what you and Hondo done to me never hurt me no more than a kid with the measles. It just made me sore, so I went out and had a real fight.”

“Yes,” says Hondo, “you look it. Let’s all have a drink.”

There’s one good thing about them fellers—they don’t hold a grudge. They sure treated me fine, and that other feller was a prince, too. We hit the high spots as long as we can keep going, and we sure showed that town a real visit.

When we can’t find nothing more to do that extra feller loads us all into a livery rig, and we sings songs all the way back to Mesquite City. I went to sleep singing “The Holy City” and woke up in a manger in a livery stable the next morning. Hank, I sure was one sick person. I manages to get out and soak my head in a watering trough, and anything on earth looks better than I feel.

I goes out and sets down on the sidewalk, and along comes Uncle Gabe in a buggy.

“Get in, young feller,” says he, and Hank, I was too sick to say no.

He takes me up to his house and puts me to bed. I’m writing this letter in Uncle Gabriel’s house now, and Emmeline is making me a lemonade drink. Uncle Gabe says that if I keep on I’ll be domesticated, whatever that is, Hank.

Well, Hank, there ain’t no more news to write so will close. That extra feller what was with us at Antelope was the detective on the case. They’ve got Windy and Hondo in jail for robbing that bank, and you won’t see them for some time. They confessed today.

I beg to remain yours truly,

Dobie Dalton.

P. S. If you’ve got anything to say, Hank, send it to Antelope, Mont., care of Galesburg’s sheep camp on Cinnamon Creek.

* * * * *

Mesquite, Mont., August 5

DEAR HANK:

Got your letter yesterday, and it is useless for me to tell you that it is the first one I ever got from you. A Mexican, by the name of Colorado Claro Maduro Sanchez brought the mail out to me, and I polished him on the head with a rock for opening it. If there was any money in it for me, Hank, you can kiss it good-by. I searched that greaser but he didn’t have nothing on him but a onion, and he kept saying—

“_Kin sabe, kin sabe!_”

Maybe he can’t now, Hank, but I’ll bet he kin next time. Maybe that ain’t up to my standard as a joke, but when you herd sheep for a few days your humor gets full of ticks.

I took this job to please Emmeline, my wife, and I hope she’s pleased. If she tried to kiss me now, she’d have to operate on my face with a mower and then antiseptic me with sheep dip. You know me, Hank, and you know I’m naturally a clean person phisikally, taking baths sometimes when same is superfluous, but, Hank, I’m off it for a while.

We got a little spring, where we get our drinking water, et cettry, after straining wool and so forth from same. Well, I dug this here spring a little deeper and better, and decides to take a bath. There ain’t nobody around that country but me, so I goes to my bath entirely nood.

Not to change the subject, Hank, but a feller ought to know more about the habits of sheep before he herds them, just like he ought to know more about his wife’s relations before he marries her. Hank, a ram sheep is a he animal with curved horns like a corkscrew, and a blood lust. Me and you have always thought that shepherds goes crazy from hearing sheep blatting, but it ain’t true. They go crazy from shock. I know what I’m telling you, Hank. I got a scientifik mind, and I don’t have to get hit with a brick house to find out if I’m right or wrong.

Well, I dived around in that pool until I gets a lot cleaner than I was previous, and then I crawls out. The sun is hot, so I stoops over to grab up my shirt, and something hits me so hard that I gets my ears full of sand in the bottom of the spring. When I comes back to the top again, Hank, I’m looking in the face of a he-ram sheep. A ram sheep ain’t so much to look into the face of, but it’s the evil intentions you can read thereon.

“Mister Sheep,” says I, “I’m going to come right out there to you and ride you to a frazzle.”

You know I’m a good rider, Hank, and you know I can ride anything what wears hair and runs on four legs, and no horse can throw me. I grabs that ram sheep by one curly horn, yanks him half-way into the spring, and then hops on his back.

He was a big sheep, Hank, and I guess I was suffering from shock, ’cause I got on him backward. I don’t mind telling you that no matter how good a rider a man is he’s handicapped when he gets all them natural bucks reversed. It ain’t hard to stick on a horse when he rears up, but when anything rears up in front of you, Hank, and sunfishes behind you at the same time, and when you ain’t got nothing on but your birthday suit, and that animol’s wool is wet, nobody can blame you if you don’t linger around long.

I got dumped on my head and shoulders, Hank, and I feels like I had fell a mile. It sure knocked all the wind out of me. Hank, I know how a bad horse feels after he’s been throwed and knocked silly, and then comes to and sees a lot of punchers standing around, all ready to throw him again.

I lays there and looks up at that congregation of ram sheep standing in a circle around me, and says to myself—

“When Emmeline finds my mangled corpse she’ll be sorry she hounded me into herding sheep.”

But at that, Hank, a ram ain’t no sheep. It’s a cross between a vishous pile-driver and a grizzly in sheep’s clothing. Being used to greasers, what don’t never take a bath, they don’t know what to make of a fine specimen of American manhood in the rough.

I wish I knowed some way to get up on my feet without bending myself no place, Hank, but it can’t be done, so I just yells: “Woof!” just like that, to scare them away, and then hops to my feet. Well, there must have been a sheep behind me, which was hard of hearing, ’cause I got shocked again, and when I quit going I sprawls out across a big ram sheep. I grabs him by the horn, and away we go off up a washout, with my two feet dragging and picking up every cactus in reach.

The feller what said that sheep will foller a leader said something, ’cause this herd is running a close second to us. Hank, you’ve heard the story about Lady Something-or-other, who rode a horse down the main street of a town, without enough clothes on to flag a handcar? She never had nothing on Mr. Dalton’s son Dobie.