After a minute they calls on their leadin' prevaricator for a yarn.
His name's Lyin' Jim Riley, which the people who baptizes him shorely tumbles to his talents.
"This yere Lyin' Jim fills a tin cup with nose-paint, an' leans back listless-like an' looks at Enright.
"'I never tells you-alls,' he says, 'about how the Ratons gets afire mighty pecooliar, an' comes near a-roastin' of me up some, do I?
It's this a-way: I'm pervadin' 'round one afternoon tryin' to compass a wild turkey, which thar's bands of 'em that Fall in the Ratons a-eatin' of the pinyon-nuts.I've got a Sharp's with me, which the same, as you-alls knows, is a single-shot, but I don't see no turks, none whatever.Now an' then I hears some little old gobbler, 'cross a canyon, a-makin' of sland'rous remarks about other gobblers to some hen he's deloodin', but I never manages a shot.As I'm comin' back to camp--I'm strollin' down a draw at the time where thar's no trees nor nothin'--thar emanates a black-tail buck from over among the bushes on the hill, an' starts to headin' my way a whole lot.His horns is jest gettin' over bein' velvet, an' he's feelin' plenty good an' sassy.I sees that buck--his horns eetches is what makes him--jump eighteen feet into the air an' comb them antlers of his'n through the hangin' pine limbs.Does it to stop the eetchin' an' rub the velvet off.Of course I cuts down on him with the Sharp's.It's a new gun that a-way, an' the sights is too coarse--you drags a dog through the hind sights easy--an' I holds high.The bullet goes plumb through the base of his horn, close into the ha'r, an' all nacheral fetches him sprawlin'.I ain't waitin' to load my gun none, which not waitin' to load, I'm yere to mention, is erroneous.I'm yere to say thar oughter be an act of Congress ag'in not loadin' your gun.They oughter teach it to the yearlin's in the schools, an' likewise in the class on the Sabbath.Allers load your gun.Who is that sharp, Mister Peets, who says, "Be shore you're right, then go ahead"? He once ranches some'ers down on the Glorieta.But what he oughter say is: "Be shore your gun's loaded, then go ahead."'
"'That's whatever!' says Dan Boggs, he'pin' himse'f an' startin' the bottle; 'an' if he has a lick of sense, that's what he would say.'
"'Which I lays down my empty gun,' goes on this Lyin' Jim, ' an'
starts for my buck to bootcher his neck a lot.When I gets within ten feet he springs to his hoofs an' stands glarin'.You can gamble, I ain't tamperin' 'round no wounded buck.I'd sooner go pesterin'
'round a widow woman.'
"'I gets mingled up with a wounded buck once,' says Dave Tutt, takin' a dab of paint, 'an' I nacherally wrastles him down an' lops one of his front laigs over his antlers, an' thar I has him; no more harm left in him than a chamber-maid.Mine's a white-tailed deer over on the Careese.'
"'This yere's a black-tail, which is different; says Lyin' Jim;'it's exactly them front laigs you talks of so lightly I'm 'fraid of.
"`The buck he stands thar sorter dazed an' battin' of his eyes.Iain't no time to go back for my Sharp's, an' my six-shooter is left in camp.Right near is a high rock with a steep face about fifteen feet straight up an' down.I scrambles on to this an' breathes ag'in, 'cause I knows no deer is ever compiled yet who makes the trip.The buck's come to complete by now, an' when he observes me on the rock, his rage is as boundless as the glory of Texas.'
"'Gents, we-alls takes another cow-swaller, right yere,' shouts Texas Thompson.'It's a rool with me to drink every time I hears the sacred name of Texas.'
"When we-alls conceals our forty drops in the usual place, Lyin' Jim proceeds:
"'When this buck notes me, he's that frenzied he backs off an' jumps ag'in the face of the rock stiff-laiged, an' strikes it with them hoofs of him.Which he does this noomerous times, an' every hoof cuts like a cold-chisel.It makes the sparks go spittin' an' flyin'
like it's a blacksmith-shop.
"'I'm takin' it ca'm enough, only I'm wonderin' how I'm goin' to fetch loose, when I notices them sparks from his hoofs sets the pine twigs an' needles a-blazin' down by the base of the rock.
"'That's what comes to my relief.In two minutes this yere spreads to a general conflagration, and the last I sees of my deer he's flyin' over the Divide into the next canyon with his tail a-blazin'
an' him utterin' shrieks.I has only time to make camp, saddle up, an' line out of thar, to keep from bein' burned before my time.
"'This yere fire rages for two months, an' burns up a billion dollars worth of mountains, I'm a coyote if some folks don't talk of lawin' me about it.'
"'That's a yarn which has the year-marks of trooth, but all the same it's deer as saves my life once,' says Doc Peets, sorter trailin' in innocent-like when this Lyin' Jim gets through; 'leastwise their meat saves it.I'm out huntin' same as you is, this time to which Ialloods.
