There's just as much
chance I won't take you acrost to the N. P., as that I won't finish
that bottle--an' that's damn little.
"About neglectin' my business, as you mentioned, that ain't worryin' me
none, because the wagon boss specified particular an' onmistakeable
that if any of us misguided sons of guns didn't show up on the job the
mornin' followin' the dance, we might's well keep on ridin' as far as
that outfit was concerned, so it's undoubtable that the cow business is
bein' carried on satisfactory durin' my temporary absence.
"Concernin' the general direction of the N. P., I'll enlighten you that
if you was to line out straight for Texas, it would be the first
railroad you'd cross. But you wouldn't never cross it because
interposed between it an' here is a right smart stretch of country
which for want of a worse name is called the bad lands. They's some
several thousan' square miles in which there's only seven water-holes
that a man can drink out of, an' generally speakin' about five of them
is dry. There's plenty of water-holes but they're poison. Some is gyp
an' some is arsnic. Also these here bad lands ain't laid out on no
general plan. The coulees run hell-west an' crossways at their
littlest end an' wind up in a mud crack. There ain't no trails, an'
the inhabitants is renegades an' horse-thieves which loves their
solitude to a murderous extent.
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