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Slim Jim's Sister.
183

No, no, he won't do," he continued, shaking his head with an air of mournful yet resentful decision, "this yere gent's too narrow; which his head is built too much the shape of a quail-trap. He may do to chase jack-rabbits an' sech, but he's a size too small for game like me. Save souls, says you! Why, if that onp'lite young person was to meet a soul like mine comin' up the trail, he'd shorely omit what to do entire; he'd be that stampeded. He'd be some hard to locate, I takes it, after he meets up with a soul like mine a whole lot."

The Old Cattleman made this proclamation rather to himself than me, but I could detect an air of pride. Then he went on:

"'This yere West you emanates from,' says this young preacher-sharp to me that a-way, 'this yere West you hails from is roode, an' don't yield none to religious inflooences.'

"'Well,' I says back to him, fillin' my pipe at the same time, 'I reckons you shorely can c'llect more with a gun than a contreebution box in the West, if that's what you-all is aimin' at. But if you figgers we don't make our own little religious breaks out in Arizona, stranger, you figgers a heap wrong. You oughter have heard Short Creek Dave that time when he turns 'vangelist an' prances into the warehouse back of the New York Store, an' shows Wolfville she's shore h'ar-hung an' breeze-shaken over hell that