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We pass the "cattymount," and presently come to a table at which a young and handsome "pilgrim," and a ferret-eyed sharp are engaged at cards. The first mentioned is a tall, robust fellow, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-three years of age, with clear-cut features, dark lustrous eyes, and teeth of pearly whiteness.
"You're a liar!" roared the "Cattymount" spreading himself about promiscuously, but the two words had scarcely left his lips when a blow from the fist of Ned Harris reached him under the left eye, and he went sprawling on the ground in a heap. "Here! here!" roared a stranger, rushing in upon the scene, and hurling the crowd aside with a dexterity something wonderful.
She had seen the young miner on several occasions; once she had been rendered an invaluable service when he rescued her from a brawl in which a dozen toughs had attacked her. "Cattymount" Cass, brother of Chet Diamond, the Deadwood card-king, recognized him also, and with an oath, sprung to his feet.
It's your deal." The cards were dealt, and the game played, resulting in the favor of the "Cattymount." Another and another was played, and the tough won every time. Still the youth kept on, a quiet smile resting on his pleasant features, a twinkle in his coal-black eye. The youth, dear reader, you have met before. He is not he, but instead Calamity Jane.
"What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a cattymount?" said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber for I was wide awake when I screamed but they restored me to the full possession of my memory. This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia.
"You're flaxed ag'in, pardner!" he said, with a light laugh, as he raked in the stakes. "This takes your all, eh?" "Every darned bit!" said the "Cattymount" for it was he with an oath. "You've peeled me to ther hide, an' no mistake. Salivated me' way out o' time, sure's thar ar' modesty in a bar-girl's tongue!" The youth laughed. "You are not in luck to-night.
It took but a few moments before the two parties met, the "Cattymount" throwing out his foot to block the path. "Hello!" roared the "tough," folding his huge knotty arms across his partially bared breast; "ho! ho! whoa up thar, pilgrims! Don' ye go ter bein' so fast. Fo'kes harn't so much in a hurry now-'days as they uster war.
At this juncture some half a dozen of the gambler's gang came rushing up, headed by Catamount Cass, who had recovered from the effects of the blow from Harris' fist. "At them! at 'em!" roared the "screechin' cattymount frum up nor'." "Rip, dig an' gouge 'em. Ho! ho! we'll see now who'll swing, we will! We'll l'arn who'll display his agility in mid-air, we will. At 'em, b'yees, at 'em.
"Oh! brethern, I tell ye I'm a snorter, I am, when I git a-goin' a wild screechin' cattymount, right down frum ther sublime spheres up Starkey ar' a regular epizootic uv religyun, sent down frum clouddum and scattered permiscously ter ther forty winds uv ther earth."
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