"Which I don't deny," replied the old gentleman, between puffs, "that back in Tennessee, as I onfolds before, I has my flower-scented days. But I don't wed nothin', as you-all knows, an' even while I'm ridin' an' ropin' at them young female persons, thar's never no romance to it, onless it's in the fact that they all escapes.
"But speakin' of love-tangles, Old Man Enright once recounts a story; which the same shows how female fancy is rootless an' onstable that a-way.
"'Allers copper a female.' says Cherokee Hall, one day, when Texas Thompson is relatin' how his wife maltreats him, an' rounds up a divorce from him down at Laredo. 'Allers play 'em to lose. Nell, yere,' goes on Cherokee, as he runs his hand over the curls of Faro Nell, who's lookout for Cherokee, 'Nelly, yere, is the only one I ever meets who can be depended on to come winner every trip.'
"'Which females,' says Old Man Enright, who's settin' thar at the time, 'an' partic'lar, young females, is a heap frivolous, nacheral. A rainbow will stampede most of 'em. For myse'f, I'd shorely prefer to try an' hold a bunch of five hundred ponies on a bad night, than ride herd on the heart of one lady. Between gent an' gent that a-way, I more'n half figger the 'ffections of a female is migratory, same as buffaloes was before
