"Twaddle! Tommyrot! Pickles!" Pete wagged a solemn forefinger.
"If you wasn't plumb simple-minded and trustin' you would 'a' tumbled long ago that somebody was putting a hoodoo on every play you make.

I caught on before you'd been here six months.

I thought, of course, you'd been doin' dirt to some one--till I come to know you." "I thank you for those kind words," grinned Mitchell; "also, for the friendly explanation with which you cover up some bad luck and more greenhorn's incompetence." "No greenhorn could be so thumbhandsided as all that," rejoined Pete earnestly.

"Your irrigation ditches break and wash out; cattle get into your crops whenever you go to town; but your fences never break when you're round the ranch.

Notice that ?" "I did observe something of that nature," confessed Mitchell.