To see this yere deal, black as midnight, closin' in on Jim, is what's hurtin'; it don't somehow occur to me I'm likewise up ag'in the iron my se'f."`"Looks like this yere amiable deevice is out to run its brand onto one of us,"says Jim to me; an' I looks at him.
"`An' then, as the fourth finds a white bean in the bag, an' draws a deep sigh an' stands back, Jim says: "Well, Sam, it's up to us."Then Jim looks at me keen an' steady a whole lot, an' the Mexicans, bein' rather pleased with the situation, ain't goadin' of us to hurry up none.
"`When it's to Jim an' me they selects me out as the one to pull for the next bean.Jim's still lookin' at me hard, an' I sees the water in his eye.'
"`"Let me have your draw, Sam," he says.
"`"Shore,"I replies, standin' a step off from the bag." It's yours too quick.""` But the Mexicans don't see it that a-way.It's my turn an' my draw, an' Jim has to take what's left.So the Mexicans tells Tate to send me after my bean ag'in.
"`"Hold on a second, Sam," says Jim, an' by this time he's steady as a church."Sam," he goes on, "thar's no use you--all gettin' the short end of this.Thar's reasons for you livin', which my case is void tharof.Now let me ask you: be you up on beans? Can you tell a black from a white bean by the feel? ""`"No," I says, "beans is all a heap the same to me.""'"That's what I allows," goes on this Jim."Now yere's where my sooperior knowledge gets in.If these Mexicans had let me draw for you I'd fixed it, but it looks like they has scrooples.But listen, an' you beats the deal as it is.Thar's a difference in beans same as in ponies.Black beans is rough like a cactus compared to white beans, which said last vegetable is shorely as smooth as glass.Now yere's what you--all does; jest grp[e an' scout 'round in that bag until you picks out the smooth bean.That's your bean; that's the white bean.Cinch the smooth bean an' the black one comes to me.""When Jim says all this it seems like I'm in a daze an' sorter woozy.I never doubts him for a moment.Of course I don't take no advantage of what he says.I recalls the advice my old mother gives me; it's long enough ago now.The old lady says: "Samyool, never let me hear of you weakenin'.Be a man, or a mouse, or a long-tail rat."So when Jim lays it off about them two beans bein' smooth an' rough that a-way, an' the white bein' the smooth bean, I nacherally searches out the rough bean, allowin' she'll shore be black; which shows my intellects can't cope with Jim's none.
"`The bean I brings to the surface is white.I'm pale as a ghost.My heart wilts like water inside of me, an' I feels white as the bean where it lays in my hand.Of course I'm some young them days, an' it don't need so much to stagger me."`I recollects like it was in a vision hearin' Jim laugh."Sam," he says, "I reads you like so much sunshine.An' I shorely fools you up a lot.Don't you reckon Iallows you'll double on the trail, p'intin' south if I says 'north'
at a show like this? The white bean is allers a rough, sandy bean;allers was an' allers will be; an' never let no one fool you that a-way ag'in.An' now, Sam, ADIOS."
"'I'm standin' lookin' at the white bean.I feels Jim grip my other hand as lie says "ADIOS," an' the next is the" bang! "of the Mexicans's guns.Jim's dead then; he's out in a second; never bats an eye nor wags a y'ear.
"'Which now,' says Enright at the end, as he yanks his saddle 'round so he makes a place for his head, 'which now that you-alls is fully informed why I appears averse to Greasers, I reckons I'll slumber some.I never does see one, I don't think of that boy, Jim Willis;an' I never thinks of Jim but I wants to murder a Mexican.'
"Enright don't say no more; sorter rolls up in his blankets, drops his head on his saddle, an' lays a long time quiet, like he's asleep.Jack Moore an' me ain't sayin' nothin'; merely settin' thar peerin' into the fire an' listenin' to the coyotes.At last Enright lifts his head off the saddle.
"'Mebby it's twenty years ago when a party over on the Rio Grande allows as how Jim's aimin' to cold-deck me when he onfolds about the habits of them beans.It takes seven months, a iron constitootion, an' three medicine-sharps--an' each as good as Doc Peets,--before that Rio Grande party is regarded as outen danger.'"
