Wolfville | Page 4

HEARST

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
WOLFVILLE'S FIRST FUNERAL
CHAPTER II.
THE STINGING LIZARD
CHAPTER III.
THE STORY OF WILKINS
CHAPTER IV.
THE WASHWOMAN'S WAR
CHAPTER V.
ENRIGHT'S PARD, JIM WILLIS
CHAPTER VI.
TUCSON JENNIE'S HEART
CHAPTER VII.
TUCSON JENNIE'S JEALOUSY
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MAN FROM RED DOG
CHAPTER IX.
CHEROKEE HALL
CHAPTER X.
TEXAS THOMPSON'S "ELECTION"
CHAPTER XI.
A WOLFVILLE FOUNDLING
CHAPTER XII.
THE MAN FROM YELLOWHOUSE
CHAPTER XIII.
JACKS UP ON EIGHTS
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RIVAL DANCE-HALLS

CHAPTER XV.
SLIM JIM'S SISTER
CHAPTER XVI.
JAYBIRD BOB'S JOKE
CHAPTER XVII.
BOGGS'S EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER XVIII.
DAWSON & RUDD, PARTNERS
CHAPTER XIX.
MACE BOWMAN, SHERIFF
CHAPTER XX.
A WOLFVILLE THANKSGIVING
CHAPTER XXI.
BILL HOSKINS'S COON
CHAPTER XXII.
OLD SAM ENRIGHT'S "ROMANCE,"
CHAPTER XXIII.
PINON BILL'S BLUFF
CHAPTER XXIV.
CRAWFISH JIM

PREFACE.
These tales by the Old Cattleman have been submitted to perhaps a
dozen people. They have read, criticised, and advised. The advice was
good; the criticism just. Some suggested a sketch which might in detail
set forth Toffville; there were those who wanted something like a
picture of the Old Cattleman; while others urged an elaboration of the
personal characteristics of Old Man Enright, Doc Peets, Cherokee Hall,
Moore, Tutt, Boggs, Faro Nell, Old Monte, and Texas Thompson. I
have, how-ever, concluded to leave all these matters to the illustrations
of Mr. Remington and the imaginations of those who read. I think it the
better way-certainly it is the easier one for me. I shall therefore permit
the Old Cattleman to tell his stories in his own fashion. The style will
be crude, abrupt, and meagre, but I trust it will prove as satisfactory to
the reader as it has to me.

A. H. L. New York, May 15,1897.

CHAPTER I.
WOLFVILLE'S FIRST FUNERAL.
"These yere obsequies which I'm about mentionin'," observed the Old
Cattleman, "is the first real funeral Wolfville has."
The old fellow had lighted a cob pipe and tilted his chair back in a
fashion which proclaimed a plan to be comfortable. He had begun to
tolerate--even encourage--my society, although it was clear that as a
tenderfoot he regarded me with a species of gentle disdain.
I had provoked the subject of funeral ceremonies by a recurrence to the
affair of the Yellowhouse Man, and a query as to what would have
been the programme of the public-spirited hamlet of Wolfville if that
invalid had died instead of yielding to the nursing of Jack Moore and
that tariff on draw-poker which the genius of Old Man Enright decreed.
It came in easy illustration, as answer to my question, for the Old
Cattleman to recall the funeral of a former leading spirit of
Southwestern society. The name of this worthy was Jack King; and
with a brief exposition of his more salient traits, my grizzled raconteur
led down to his burial with the remark before quoted.
"Of course," continued the Old Cattleman, "of course while thar's some
like this Yallerhouse gent who survives; thar's others of the boys who is
downed one time an' another, an' goes shoutin' home to heaven by
various trails. But ontil the event I now recalls, the remainders has been
freighted east or west every time, an' the camp gets left. It's hard luck,
but at last it comes toward us; an' thar we be one day with a corpse all
our'n, an' no partnership with nobody nor nothin'.
"'It's the chance of our life,' says Doc Peets, 'an' we plays it. Thar's
nothin' too rich for our blood, an' these obsequies is goin' to be
spread-eagle, you bet! We'll show Red Dog an' sim'lar villages they

ain't sign-camps compared with Wolfville.'
"So we begins to draw in our belts an' get a big ready. Jack King, as I
says before, is corpse, eemergin' outen a game of poker as sech. Which
prior tharto, Jack's been peevish, an' pesterin' an' pervadin' 'round for
several days. The camp stands a heap o' trouble with him an' tries to
smooth it along by givin' him his whiskey an' his way about as he
wants 'em, hopin' for a change. But man is only human, an' when Jack
starts in one night to make a flush beat a tray full for seven hundred
dollars, he asks too much.
"Thar ain't no ondertakers, so we rounds up the outfit, an' knowin' he'd
take a pride in it, an' do the slam-up thing, we puts in Doc Peets to deal
the game unanimous.
"'Gents,' he says, as we-alls turns into the Red Light to be refreshed, 'in
assoomin' the present pressure I feels the compliments paid me in the
seelection. I shall act for the credit of the camp, an' I needs your help. I
desires that these rites be a howlin' vict'ry. I don't want people comin'
'round