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Show rOETUNE-TELUNG STOET. ' "You see,-I'd know'd Fairy Ellen fer years. Bun acrost her first in San Antonio and later I'd found her in New-Orleans. New-Orleans. So when we landed thafvfer a day one spring and I'd put Bill Slos-son Slos-son and voung Lieut. Wood onto all the trails in town an' we wuz a-goin' back to the boat, I happened to remember thet I'd plumb fergot Fairy Ellen. We bed just about time, an', bcin' the lead mule, I steered 'em down into the picayune pica-yune back alley wher' she did business. It wuz a dirty cabin, and she - wuz an old greaser woman with a complexion like a mouldy cheese and a figure like a question mark. I never believed in forchune tellin' till I saw her in San Antonio, but she cert'nly marked out my trail fer me even to the bonanza I struck in Colorado. Well, as I wuz recalling re-calling I took the boys 'round thar and she took our dollars an' mumbled a lot o' pigeon Spanish. She assayed Slos-son's Slos-son's hand all right an' told dim a lot o' things he didn't want to know, including in-cluding the fact that be would be killed finally by dark-faced .furrincrs. I've been waitin' fer years a-watchin' Slos-son. Slos-son. an' when he wuz 'ordered to the Pbillipians I said it wuz all over. An' it wuz. He wuz shot in the first fight he got into. When she come to the Lef tenant she looked fer a minute, then she shook her head. She jest wouldn't tell his, and after we'd argued and threatened and got mad and left, she stood thar and watched us clown tbe street. The other two wuz laughin', but I thought I smelled somethin' interests', inter-ests', and I told 'em thet I'd left somethin '. I 've fcrgotten now whar we'd left her and thar wuz a vacant kind of a look on her face. Vbv didn't, ye tell his forchune. Fairvf' says I. 'Because.' says she, and her voice sounded like a cowboy's the mornin' after a spree, hard and tired like, 'he ain't got half an hour to live.' I didn 't ejaculate a word. I jest worked my legs fer the dock. I got thar jest oz Slosson and the Iftcnant was crossin' tbe jrangplank. 'Leftenant,' I called out like a fool, and be stopped an ' Slosson went on. Then all of a sudden a spar got loose up above an' I saw it fall and the young feller never knowed what, hit him. Old Fairy Ellen wuz right. The minute she told me, I knowed thar wuzn't any more chance fer him then thar is fer a man ridin' a buckin' bronco up Marshall Pass." From "The Balance of Power,',' the ,oew Amertcan norei. |