THE RISE OF GINGER GILLETT
considerable for so small a community. And now Keeley suddenly began to take more interest in the matter in hand, for he grabbed Ginger by the ankle, and Ginger went down like a pithed steer and shook himself up pretty considerable. But there's no give in to Ginger, and the rollin' circus recommenced in the yard, each man bein' determined to thump the other one's cabeza on the pavement in order to introduce more simplicity into the tangled proceedings of the court. And I dessay, though you are a tender-foot here, as I understand you've travelled some, you may hev noticed that there must be an end to any game, and that in a fight to a finish it's likely to come sudden just about the time that them without real experience is lookin' for a draw. Now the cowboys—as is mostly young fools fitted with mesquite leggin's, a gun they can't use, and conceit that nobody else can—was yellin', 'A draw, a draw!' But I knew better, for I saw Ginger's eye still like a burnin' match in a dark night, and Keeley's prophetic of sad failure, like a man with one blown-out match and a seegar unlighted on the prairie and far
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