Charles Portis

I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life

a cotton house made over into a little cabin. It had a good roof.

“Who is the best marshal they have?”

The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, “I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L. T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake.

t legal nature. He knew of it

l, taking his text from the 16th chapter of Jo

I returned to the Monarch to get the breakfast I had paid for. LaBoeuf the Texan was at the table, shaved and clean. I supposed he could do noth

said Mrs. Floyd. “Little Mattie here stood him down and made him take them back at a good price.”

Right around 9 o’clock I went to the stock barn and exchanged my release for t

n paper and the moment fell short of my expectations. I noted the mild disappointment and made no more of it than that. Perhaps I was affected by Stonehill’s downcast state.

I said, “Well, you have ke

Crow bait.”

“You are looking at the thing in the wrong light.”

“I am looking at it in the light of God’s e

o of the Southwest. Well, my little friend, it is not the Chicago of the Southwest. I cannot rightly say what it is. I would gladly take pen in hand and write a thick book on my misadventures here, but dare not for fear of being called a lying romancer.”

“The malaria is making you feel bad. You will soon find a buyer for the ponies.”