'I don't think,--I knows.' "'Whichever is it then ?' asks Dan Boggs, whose ha'r already begins to bristle, he's that inquisitive.

'Simply takin' a ignorant shot in the dark that away, I says, "No." That moon looks like a mighty lonesome loominary to me.' "'Jest the same,' retorts the Colonel, an' he's a lot dogmatic, 'that planet's fairly speckled with people.

An' if some gent will recall the errant fancies of Black Jack to a sense of dooty, I'll onfold how I knows.
"'It's when I'm crowdin' twenty,' goes on the Colonel, followin' the ministrations of Black Jack, 'an' I'm visitin' about the meetropolis of Looeyville.

I've been sellin' a passel of runnin' hosses; an' as I rounds up a full peck of doubloons for the fourteen I disposes of, I'm feelin' too contentedly cunnin' to live.

It's evenin' an' the moon is shinin' same as now.