Friday, August 8, 2008

The Escaped W.W. Phelps

:: Say, stranger, G--d damn you, what is your name?
:: You damned rascals, what is yours?
:: Oh, you are one of the real breed. By G--d, no damned Mormon could counterfeit that language, you swear real natteral; hurrah for old Kentuck. But whar mought you live, stranger?
:: Just up here; you mout a kno'd me, and then agin you moutn't. I think I've seed you all a heap o' times, but I've been so damned drunk at the fourth of independence, I hardly know myself or anybody else, but hurrah for old Kentuck; and what about the damn'd Mormons?
:: What about `em? egad, you'd a know'd that without axin', if you'd a seed `em run.
:: What! they are not out of prison, are they?
:: Out of prison! Yes, the damn'd rascals raised a flag of liberty in open day, and burst out, and down stars right in the midst of the public celebration, out rassling the damn'd jailer, and outrunning the whole town in a fair foot race. They reached the timber jist as they war overtaken, but afore we could cotch `em they mounted their nags, and the way they cleared was a caution to Crockett. We tuk one on `em, and seed the other two a few feet distant, rushin' their nags at full speed, but we couldn't cotch `em nor shoot `em either; I raised my new Kentucky rifle, fresh loaded and primed, with a good percussion, and taking fair aim at one of their heads only a few yards distant, I fired, but the damn'd cap burst, and the powder wouldn't burn.
:: Well, now, stranger, that's a mighty big story and seems enemost onpossible. Did you say you cotched one on `em? Why I'd a tho't you'd a kilt him on the spot; what have you done with him?
:: They tuk him back to prison, I suppose, but it was only the old one. If it had been one o' them tother chaps we would a skinn'd `em as quick as Crockett would a coon, and then eat `em alive without leaving a grease spot.

Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Ch. 33

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