Thar's a big ant
hill close at hand; it's with reference to this yere ant colony that
the nephy is staked out. In three hours from the tune them ants gets
the word from the Apaches, they've done eat the nephy up, an' the
last vestitch of him plumb disappears with the last ant, as the
latter resoomes his labors onder the earth.
"Why, shore! these yere ants'll eat folks. They re-yards sech
reepasts as festivals, an' seasons of reelaxation from the sterner
dooties of a ant. I recalls once how we loses Locoed Charlie, which
demented party I b'lieve I mentions to you prior. This yere Charlie
takes a day off from where he's workin'--at least he calls it labor-
-at the stage corrals, an' goes curvin' over to Red Dog. Charlie
tanks up on the whiskey of that hamlet, compared to which the worst
nose-paint ever sold in Wolfville is nectar. They palms off mebby
it's a quart of this jooce on Charlie, an' then he p'ints out for
Wolfville.
"That's the last of the pore drunkard. His pony is nickcrin' about
the corral gates, pleadin' with the mules inside to open 'em, in the
mornin', but no sign or smoke of Locoed Charlie. An' he never does
show up no more.
"If it's Enright or Cherokee Hall, or any valyooed citizen, thar
would have issooed forth a war party, an' Red Dog would have been
sacked an' burned but what the missin' gent would have been turned
out.
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