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But the dust-whitened train, which twice a day puffed into Blue Creek and twice a day puffed joyfully out again, had, on this particular afternoon, set down a party which had caused unusual speculation among the Blue Creekites. "Thar's Jim Bell, frum out the desert, an' an old gent who looks like he might be some kin to Jim, and then thar's them likely lookin' lads an' those uncommon purty gals.
"Haw! haw! haw!" and the General shook his fat sides with immoderate laughter. "Why, pilgrim-tender-fut, this 'ere hundred an' twenty-six pounds o' feminine gender b'longs to me ter yours, truly, Walsingham Nix an' I have a parfec' indervidual right ter hug an' kiss her as much as I please, wi'out brookin' enny interference frum you.
I never git nuthin'. I'm sixty-nine years old cum Christmas an' I ain't never ben further away frum hum than twenty miles hand runnin', an' here's a chit like you done travelin' enuff ter last a lifetime." "But I didn't want to travel, Mrs. Riggs," said Evadne gently. "I would so much rather have stayed at home." "There you go!" grumbled the old lady.
'Fore I went in, I had the rickets, they say: that's what ails me. 'T hurt my head, they've told me, made me different frum other folks." She stopped a moment, with a dumb, hungry look in her eyes. After a while she looked at Margaret furtively, with a pitiful eagerness. "Miss Marg'et, I think there is something wrong in my head. Did yoh ever notice it?"
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.
"Bisco," said the leader, "we cum heah to pay you back fur de blood you drawed frum our backs whilst you hilt de whip ob slabery an' oberseed fur white fo'ks.
"She snatched the socks frum me, an' I 'lowed she wus goin' to throw 'em away, but she turned 'em upside down an' helt 'em before my eyes. 'Do you call that a M? sez she, an' shore 'nough it was as plain a W as I ever laid eyes on. "'Oh! sez I, 'now I see. Do you want me to give 'em to John Westerfelt? "But she wouldn't say narry a word.
Thar was one remarkable pecooliarity about ther Nix family, frum root ter stump, an' ther war, they war nevyer known ter refuse a gift or an advantageous offer; in this respeck they bore a striking resemblance ter the immortell G'orge Washington. G'orge war innercent; he ked never tell a lie.
Ain't the near-beer " he sank his voice discreetly, although there was no one to overhear "ain't the near-beer an' the still nearer beer goin' fetch you in a right peart lil' income? I'll say they is. An' ain't you goin' do mighty well on yore own account out of yore share of the commission frum Gumbo Rollinses' Flyin' Jinny?" "Hole on, hole on! How come Gumbo Rollins?"
"Yer see, frum here, it would look as if they vanished inter the solid earth when they entered it, bein' as how you can't see there's any kind of a gully there till you get up high." The next morning this was found to be the true explanation. Tracks on the bottom of the gully showed plainly how the strange desert wanderers had effected their disappearance in such a startling manner.
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