"Well, say, look here, Tom!" exclaimed Scotty in alarm. "Yuh don't mean to say that Miss Saltoun girl is a-comin' out to the Flyin' M."
"Which I hope not, too. She's so good-lookin' she scares me, she does. I don't want to go nowheres near her, an' I won't, neither. No, sirree. If she ever comes a-traipsin' out to the ranch yuh can do yore own talkin'."
"Aw, keep yore shirt on. I guess now she won't come."
"I'll bet she's a-aimin' to, or yuh wouldn't 'a' said what yuh did. Yuh can't fool me, Tom. She'll come, an' she'll bring Jim Mace's wife along for a chaperon, an' they'll most likely stay for two meals, an' I'll have to grub in the corral. Great note this is! Druv out o' my own home by a couple o' female women!
"Laugh! It's awful funny! I never could abide Mis' Mace, either. She's always talkin', talkin'. Talk the hide off a cow, an' not half try. How Jim stands her I can't see nohow. If she was my woman I'd feed her wolf-pizen, or take it myself."
"I guess now yuh never was married, was yuh, Scotty?"
"Me married! Well, I guess not! Come mighty close to it once. I must 'a' been crazy or drunk, or somethin'--anyway, when I was a young feller over east in Macpherson, Kansas, me an' Sue Shimmers had it all fixed for hitchin' up together. Nice girl, Sue was. Good cook, a heap energetic, an' right pretty in the face. The day before the weddin' Sue cuts stick an' elopes with Tug Wilson, the blacksmith.
"I felt bad for mighty nigh a week, but I've been a heap joyous ever since. Yes, sir, Sue developed a lot after marriage. Why, if Tug took so much as one finger of old Jordan Sue'd wallop him with a axe-handle. Poor old Tug used to chew up so many cloves he got dyspepsy. Between the axe-handle an' the dyspepsy Tug had all he could swing to keep alive. I've never stopped bein' grateful to Tug Wilson. He saved my life. Yes, sir, as a rule, females is bad medicine."
"I said as a general rule. Like I told yuh once before, Mis' Burr an' Dorothy are real ladies, all silk an' several yards wide. A gent can talk to them just like folks. An' Dorothy can have my ranch an' every cayuse on it, includin' my mules, any time she wants. Nothin's too good for that little girl."
"She's all o' that. Now there's a girl that'll make a ace-high wife. She wouldn't use no axe-handle. She'd understand a gent's failin's, she would, an' she'd break him off 'em so nice an' easy he wouldn't know nothin' about it. Yes, sir, the party that gets Dorothy Burr needn't worry none 'bout bein' happy."