{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_71089/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_71089","id":"gutenberg_71089","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71089","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Cowboys -- Texas -- Folklore","Pecos Bill (Fictitious character) -- Legends","Tall tales -- Texas"],"text":"[Illustration: decorated line]\n\n\n\n\n                               TALL TALES\n                                 _from_\n                                 TEXAS\n\n                          By MODY C. BOATRIGHT\n\n                            _Illustrated by_\n                          ELIZABETH E. KEEFER\n\n                             _Foreword by_\n                             J. FRANK DOBIE\n\n\n[Illustration: tales around campfire]\n\n\n                          THE SOUTHWEST PRESS\n\n                  _Publishers in and of the Southwest_\n                             DALLAS, TEXAS\n\n\n\n\n                             COPYRIGHT 1934\n                            SOUTH-WEST PRESS\n\n\n\n\n                               .. _To_ ..\n\n                               MY FATHER\n\n\n\n\n                           TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                Page\n\n                   Preface--J. Frank Dobie       vii\n\n                   Introduction                  xix\n\n                   Pizenous Windies                1\n\n                   Speed                          18\n\n                   Birds and Beasts               28\n\n                   Wind and Weather               40\n\n                   By the Breadth of a Hair       53\n\n                   The Genesis of Pecos Bill      68\n\n                   Adventures of Pecos Bill       80\n\n                   The Exodus of Pecos Bill       95\n\n[Illustration: landscape]\n\n\n\n\n                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n     \u201cI feels somethin\u2019 tappin\u2019 me on the leg\u201d                 12\n\n     \u201cJist as he pulls the trigger, he runs to beat hell\u201d      23\n\n     \u201cPurty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and\n        pricks up his ears\u201d                                    33\n\n     \u201cJist as I teched the crown a feller yelled out\u201d          47\n\n     \u201cWell, sir, them birds jist naturally lifted me right\n        out of that sink hole\u201d                                 63\n\n     \u201cA settin\u2019 on that tornado and a-spurrin\u2019 it in the\n        withers\u201d                                               85\n\n     \u201cThat gal come ridin\u2019 down the R\u00edo Grande on a\n        catfish\u201d                                               93\n\n\n\n\n                      A PREFACE ON AUTHENTIC LIARS\n\n\nAn authentic liar knows what he is lying about, knows that his\nlisteners--unless they are tenderfeet, greenhorns--know also, and hence\nmakes no pretense of fooling either himself or them. At his best he\nis as grave as a historian of the Roman Empire; yet what he is after\nis neither credulity nor the establishment of truth. He does not take\nhimself too seriously, but he does regard himself as an artist and\nyearns for recognition of his art. He may lie with satiric intent; he\nmay lie merely to make the time pass pleasantly; he may lie in order to\ntake the wind out of some egotistic fellow of his own tribe or to take\nin some greener; again, without any purpose at all and directed only by\nhis ebullient and companion-loving nature, he may \u201cstretch the blanket\u201d\nmerely because, like the redoubtable Tom Ochiltree, he had \u201crather lie\non credit than tell truth for cash.\u201d His generous nature revolts at\nthe monotony of everyday facts and overflows with desire to make his\ncompany joyful.\n\nCertainly the telling of \u201cwindies\u201d flourished in the Old World long\nbefore America was discovered; nevertheless the tall tale both in\nsubject matter and in manner of telling has been peculiar to the\nfrontiers of America, whether in the backwoods of the Old South, in the\nmining camps of the Far West, amid the logging camps presided over by\nPaul Bunyan, or on the range lands stretching from the Gulf of Mexico\nto the Canadian line. Very likely the Pilgrim Fathers did not indulge\nmuch in the art of yarning, and the stately Cavaliers pretty much left\nthat sort of entertainment to the poor--\u201cpoor but honest\u201d--settlers. As\nto whether the \u201cdecay in the art of lying\u201d that Oscar Wilde observed\nin literary fiction has blighted that to be heard around camp fires and\non the galleries of ranch houses, we need not here inquire. The \u201cbig\nuns\u201d that Mody Boatright has gathered together in this book are not\naltogether out of the past.\n\nThey express a way that range folk talked and they express also a\nway in which these folk cartooned objects familiar to them like\nrattlesnakes, sand storms, jack rabbits, the expanding and contracting\npowers of rawhide, the suddenness of Texas northers, \u201ckillings\u201d\naccording to a code that clearly distinguished a killing from a\nmurder, and other things. They are, in short, authentic both as to the\ncharacters represented and the subjects discoursed upon.\n\nWhen in the old days two cow outfits met upon the range, and there\nwas \u201cample time,\u201d as Andy Adams would say, they sometimes arranged\nwhat was known as an \u201cauguring match.\u201d Each outfit would pit its prime\nyarn-spinner against the other and there followed a contest not only of\ninvention but of endurance. John Palliser in _The Solitary Hunter; or,\nSporting Adventures of the Prairies_ (London, 1856) relates how after\nan all-night talking contest between a Missourian and a Kentuckian, the\numpire \u201cat a quarter past five\u201d found the Kentucky man fast asleep,\nhis opponent \u201csitting up close beside him and whispering in his ear.\u201d\nWhat the contestants talked about, Palliser does not say, but there is\nample testimony to prove that the \u201cauguring matches\u201d on the range had\nas precedent among the backwoodsmen of the South who were to push out\nupon the ranges a kind of round table talk in which each talker sought\nto cap the tall tales of his fellow with one a little taller.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor genuine artists a solitary opponent is sufficient; art is\nsubstantive. _In Piney Woods Tavern; or, Sam Slick in Texas_\n(Philadelphia, 1858), by Samuel A. Hammett, the narrator in traveling\nfrom the Brazos to the Trinity rivers found the San Jacinto \u201ca roarin\u2019\nand a hummin\u2019 it.... Free soil movements was a-goin\u2019 on, and trees\na-tumblin\u2019 in all along the banks.\u201d\n\n     I see thar war no help for it [the narrator goes on]. So I\n     took my feet outen the stirrups, threw my saddle-bags over\n     my shoulder, and in me and the mar went.\n\n     We war in a awful tight place for a time, but we soon\n     landed safe. I\u2019d jest got my critter tied out, and a fire\n     started to dry myself with when I see a chap come ridin\u2019 up\n     the hill on a smart chunk of a pony....\n\n     \u201cHoopee! stranger\u201d--sings out my beauty--\u201cHow d\u2019ye? Kept\n     your fireworks dry, eh? How in thunder did ye get over?\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh!\u201d says I, \u201cmighty easy. Ye see, stranger, I\u2019m powerful\n     on a pirogue; so I waited till I see a big log a-driftin\u2019\n     nigh the shore, when I fastened to it, set my critter\n     a-straddle on it, got into the saddle, paddled over with my\n     saddle-bags, and steered with the mare\u2019s tail.\u201d\n\n     \u201cYe didn\u2019t, though, by Ned!\u201d says he, \u201cdid ye?\u201d\n\n     \u201cMighty apt to\u201d--says I--\u201cbut arter ye\u2019ve sucked all that\n     in and got yer breath agin, let\u2019s know how _you_ crossed?\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh!\u201d says he, settin\u2019 his pig\u2019s eyes on me, \u201cI\u2019ve been\n     a-riding all day with a consarned ager, and orful dry, and\n     afeard to drink at the prairie water holes; so when I got\n     to the river I jest went in fer a big drink, swallered half\n     a mile of water, and come over dry shod.\u201d\n\n     \u201cStranger,\u201d says I, \u201cye\u2019r just one huckleberry above my\n     persimmon. Light and take some red-eye. I thought ye looked\n     green, but I were barkin\u2019 up the wrong tree.\u201d\n\nStory-telling in Texas was so popular that at times it interfered with\nreligion. The pioneer Baptist preacher, Z. N. Morrell, relates in his\nautobiographic _Flowers and Fruits in the Wilderness_ (Dallas, 1886)\nthat on one occasion while he was preaching in a log cabin in East\nTexas his sermon was drowned by the voices of men outside \u201ctelling\nanecdotes.\u201d After an ineffectual reprimand, the preacher finally told\nhis interrupters that if they would give him a chance he would tell\nan anecdote and that then, if it was not better than any of theirs,\nhe would \u201ctake down his sign and listen to them.\u201d They agreed to the\nchallenge. The anecdote he proceeded to relate about Sam Houston and\nthe battle of San Jacinto won him the right to keep on talking without\ninterruption. The triumph was but a repetition of David Crockett\u2019s\nelection to Congress through his b\u2019ar stories.\n\nAn anecdote is not by any means necessarily a windy, but people who\ncultivate the art of oral narration will sooner or later indulge in\nexaggerative invention. Some candidate for the Ph.D. degree should\nwrite a thesis on the interrelationship of the anecdote, the tall tale,\nand the short story in America. What is probably the most widely known\nstory that the nation has produced, \u201cThe Celebrated Jumping Frog of\nCalaveras County,\u201d is all three--and it is mostly just a yarn in which\nthe frontier character, Jim Smiley, character being the essence of good\nanecdote, is more important than the frog.\n\nSixty years or so ago at Covey\u2019s college for ranch boys, located at\nConcrete, Texas, near Cuero, the \u201cscholars\u201d organized a liar\u2019s club.\nAccording to the rules of the club every boy present at a session\nmust tell a story. The teller of what was adjudged the best yarn was\nhabitually awarded as a prize a dozen hot tamales cooked by one of the\nMexican women about the premises.\n\nOne night a certain lad of few words who had been drawn into the club\nwas called upon to contribute.\n\n\u201cWall,\u201d he drawled, \u201cI was raised away out in the bresh up whur I never\nheared nobody talk, and I jes\u2019 ain\u2019t got no story to tell.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, go on and tell something,\u201d the other club members urged.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d the diffident youth remonstrated, \u201cit ain\u2019t no use fer me to try\nto make up anything. I jest can\u2019t do it. I\u2019ve been a-trying to figger\nup something while you all was telling your stories, and the pump won\u2019t\neven prime.\u201d\n\nThere was more urging and encouraging. But still the boy from up the\ncreek hung back. As a member of the club, however, he simply had to\ntell something--or \u201ctake the leggins.\u201d Finally the leader of the\ngroup suggested, \u201cI guess we can let you off from lying if you\u2019re so\nmuch like George Washington. Just go ahead and tell us about some\ninteresting happening. It don\u2019t have to be a lie.\u201d\n\n\u201cWall,\u201d the drawly tongue started off, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you about something\nthat happened to me. One morning I was a-leaving the ranch to look out\nfor wormy calves. I was going to be gone all day, and jest as I throwed\nmy leg over the saddle, a Meskin girl that lived with her people in\na jacal close to the corral came a-running out. \u2018Here,\u2019 says she,\n\u2018we\u2019ve jest been making tamales out of the cow that got her leg broke\nyesterday and you all had to kill. The meat is fat and the corn is new,\nand the tamales are _muy sabroso_. You must take some of them with you.\u2019\n\n\u201cNow I would do nearly anything this little Meskin girl suggested. So\nI told her all right, to wrop the tamales up in some paper and a flour\nsack and I\u2019d put \u2019em in my morral with the hank of dried beef and the\nbottle of worm medicine. Which she did. Tamales ain\u2019t much good unless\nthey are hot, you know, and I figgered the wropping would keep these\nwarm.\n\n\u201cWell, after I\u2019d gone about six miles, I struck a bull that I decided\nto rope. Which I did. The bull he kept on going after he hit the end\nof the rope and my horse he could not stop him. He dragged me about\nforty miles more or less, I guess, before I hung up in a mesquite tree\nwith my chin between the forks of a limb. I don\u2019t know how long I hung\nthere, but it was some time. People differ as to how long it was.\nAnyway, it was until the limb rotted down and I dropped to the ground.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want to go back to the ranch afoot, and so I hit out\nfollering the horse\u2019s tracks. I found him a good piece out looking\npurty gant but still saddled and the rope that had rotted off the\nbull\u2019s neck still tied to the horn of the saddle. I went right up to\nthe morral, for it was still on the saddle, and untied it. I was a\nlittle gant myself. Then I felt of the sacking around the tamales, and\nI couldn\u2019t feel no heat. Says I to myself, \u2018I bet that Meskin girl\ndidn\u2019t wrop \u2019em right and the danged things have got so cold they won\u2019t\nbe no count to eat.\u2019 But I went on and unwropped the paper, and when I\ngot to the shucks, danged if they didn\u2019t burn my fingers. Them tamales\nshore tasted good after all that bull running and then hoofing it after\nthe horse. It is remarkable the way tamales hold the heat when they are\nwell wropped.\u201d\n\nEven the schools for ranch boys in Texas included \u201cwindjamming\u201d among\ntheir activities. But many a frontiersman who had not had the advantage\nof an education must have been forced by circumstances to \u201cmake it\nstrong\u201d in telling about the Wild West to gentle Easterners. Every new\nland has marvels; hence \u201ctraveler\u2019s tales.\u201d When facts are taken for\nfabrications, then the narrator is tempted to \u201ccut loose\u201d sure enough.\nOne of the most honest-hearted and reliable frontiersmen that ever\nboiled coffee over mesquite coals was Bigfoot Wallace. He came to Texas\nfrom Virginia long before barbed wire \u201cplayed hell\u201d with the longhorns.\nAfter he had himself become a regular Longhorn he went back to his\nold home for a visit. As John C. Duval in the delightful _Adventures\nof Bigfoot Wallace_ (1870) has the old frontiersman describe his\nreception, he was egged on in the following manner to take the bridle\noff and let out the last kink.\n\n     A few weeks after my arrival I went to a fandango that\n     was given for my special benefit. There was a great\n     crowd there, and everybody was anxious to see the \u201cWild\n     Texan,\u201d as they called me. I was the lion of the evening,\n     particularly for the young ladies, who never tired of\n     asking me questions about Mexico, Texas, the Indians,\n     prairies, etc. I at first answered truthfully all the\n     questions they asked me; but when I found they evidently\n     doubted some of the stories I told them which were facts,\n     then I branched out and gave them some whoppers. These they\n     swallowed down without gagging. For instance, one young\n     woman wanted to know how many wild horses I had ever seen\n     in a drove. I told her perhaps thirty or forty thousand.\n\n     \u201cOh, now! Mr. Wallace,\u201d said she, \u201cdon\u2019t try to make game\n     of me in that way. Forty thousand horses in one drove!\n     Well, I declare you are a second Munchausen!\u201d[1]\n\n     \u201cWell, then,\u201d said I, \u201cmaybe you won\u2019t believe me when I\n     tell you there is a sort of spider in Texas as big as a\n     peck measure, the bite of which can only be cured by music.\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh, yes,\u201d she answered, \u201cI believe that\u2019s all so, for I\n     have read about them in a book.\u201d\n\n     \u201cAmong other whoppers, I told her there was a varmint in\n     Texas called the Santa F\u00e9, that was still worse than the\n     tarantula, for the best brass band in the country couldn\u2019t\n     cure their sting; that the creature had a hundred legs and\n     a sting on every one of them, besides two large stings in\n     its forked tail, and fangs as big as a rattlesnake\u2019s. When\n     they sting you with their legs alone, you might possibly\n     live an hour; when with all their stings, perhaps fifteen\n     or twenty minutes; but when they sting and bite you at the\n     same time, you first turn blue, then yellow, and then a\n     beautiful bottle-green, when your hair all falls out, and\n     your finger nails drop off, and in five minutes you are\n     as dead as a door nail, in spite of all the doctors in\n     America.\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh! My! Mr. Wallace!\u201d said she. \u201cHow have you managed to\n     live so long in that horrible country?\u201d\n\n     \u201cWhy, you see,\u201d said I, \u201cwith my tarantula boots made of\n     alligator skin, and my centipede hunting-shirt made of\n     tanned rattlesnake hides, I have escaped pretty well; but\n     these don\u2019t protect you against the stinging scorpions,\n     cow-killers, and scaly-back chinches, that crawl about at\n     night when you are asleep! The only way to keep them at a\n     distance is to chaw tobacco and drink whiskey, and that is\n     the reason the Temperance Society never flourished much in\n     Texas.\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh!\u201d said she, \u201cwhat a horrible country that must be,\n     where the people have to be stung to death, or else chaw\n     tobacco and drink whiskey! I don\u2019t know which is the worst.\u201d\n\n     \u201cWell,\u201d said I, \u201cthe people out there don\u2019t seem to mind it\n     much; they get used to it after a while. In fact, they seem\n     rather to like it, for they chaw tobacco and drink whiskey\n     even in the winter time, when the cow-killers and stinging\n     lizards are all frozen up!\u201d\n\nWhat gusto, what warmth of natural sympathy, what genial expansion!\nHere the authentic liar has been translated by circumstances and by\nhis own genius into the pure aura of truth. There is no distortion,\nno \u201cwrenching the true cause the wrong way,\u201d no base intent to win by\narousing false fears or to defraud through false hopes. The artist has\nbut arranged the objects of his scene and then handed the spectator a\nmagnifying glass that is flawlessly translucent. The magnified vision,\nlike that of Tartarin of Tarascon, seems but the effect of a sunlight\ntransilluminating all other sunlights--the sunlight of Tartarin\u2019s Midi\ncountry, \u201cthe only liar in the Midi.\u201d Only here it is the sunlight of\nthe West, which brings mountain ranges a hundred miles away within\napparent touching distance and through its mirages makes antelopes\nstalk as tall as giraffes, gives to buffalo bulls far out on the\nprairies the proportions of hay wagons, and reveals spired cities and\ntree-shadowed lakes reposing in deserts actually so devoid of life that\nnot even a single blade of green grass can there be found.\n\nOccasionally one of these authentic liars of the West falls a prey to\nhis own lying. Frank Root (_The Overland Stage to California_) relates\nthat one time after a Gargantuan story-teller named Ranger Jones had\nfinished narrating a particularly blood-curdling \u201cpersonal experience,\u201d\na stage driver who happened to be among the listeners looked him\nsquarely in the eye and said, \u201cI hope, Ranger Jones, that you don\u2019t\nexpect me to believe this story.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell--er--no--really, I don\u2019t,\u201d the narrator answered. \u201cThe fact is, I\nhave lied out here in this Western country so long and have been in the\nhabit of telling so many damned lies, the truth of it is now that I\ndon\u2019t know when I can believe myself.\u201d In _Trails Plowed Under_ Charles\nM. Russell has a delicious chapter on \u201cSome Liars of the Old West.\u201d\n\n\u201cThese men weren\u2019t vicious liars,\u201d he comments. \u201cIt was love of\nromance, lack of reading matter, and the wish to be entertainin\u2019 that\nmakes \u2019em stretch facts and invent yarns.\u201d Among the most famous of\nthese liars was a man known as Lyin\u2019 Jack, and his favorite tale was on\nan elk he once killed that had a spread of antlers fifteen feet wide.\nHe always kept these, as he told the story, in the loft of his cabin.\n\nOne time after a long absence Lyin\u2019 Jack showed up in Benton. \u201cThe\nboys\u201d were all glad to see him and, after a round or two of drinks,\nasked him for a yarn.\n\n\u201cNo, boys,\u201d said Jack, \u201cI\u2019m through. For years I\u2019ve been tellin\u2019 these\nlies--told \u2019em so often I got to believin\u2019 \u2019em myself. That story of\nmine about the elk with the fifteen-foot horns is what cured me. I told\nabout that elk so often that I knowed the place I killed it. One night\nI lit a candle and crawled up in the loft to view the horns--an\u2019 I\u2019m\ndamned if they weren\u2019t there.\u201d\n\nIn a book of not enough consequence to warrant the naming of its title,\nthe author, writing through hearsay and attempting to be veracious,\ndescribes the Texas norther--which comes \u201csudden and soon in the dead\nof night or the blaze of noon\u201d--as being so swift in descent, so\nterrible in force, and so bitterly cold that \u201cno old Texan would trust\nhimself out on the prairies in July or August with the thermometer at\nninety-six degrees, without two blankets strapped at the saddlebow to\nkeep him from freezing to death should a norther blow up.\u201d Of course\nno man of the range carries his blankets on the horn of a saddle and\nno Texan ever experienced a genuine norther in July or August. The\ndescription is utterly false, utterly lacking in authenticity. On the\nother hand, when \u201cMr. Fishback of the Sulphurs\u201d relates how one hot\nday in December when he was riding home he saw a blue norther coming\nbehind him, put spurs to his horse, and, racing for miles with the nose\nof the wind at his very backbone, arrived at the stable to find the\nhind-quarters of his horse frozen stiff whereas the fore-quarters were\nin a lather of sweat--such a hair\u2019s breadth doth divide the hot prelude\nto a norther from the iciness of the norther itself--we realize that we\nare in the company of a liar as authentic as he is accomplished. Surely\nsuch do not violate the ninth commandment; indeed they have become as\nlittle children.\n\n                                               --J. FRANK DOBIE,\n                                                 Austin, Texas,\n                                              Cinco de Mayo, 1934.\n\n\n[1] Forty thousand, even thirty thousand, mustangs are a lot of\nmustangs. In _The Young Explorers_, a book privately printed in Austin,\nTexas, about 1892, Duval, pp. 111-112, defends this extraordinary\nassertion. The wild horses were encountered between the Nueces River\nand the R\u00edo Grande. Corroborative of the enormous numbers to be found\nin that region is the testimony of William A. McClintock, \u201cJournal of\na Trip Through Texas and Northern Mexico,\u201d _Southwestern Historical\nQuarterly_, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 232-233. Bigfoot Wallace was not lying\nabout the wild horses.\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe pioneers who came to Texas to found a cattle industry that\neventually extended from the R\u00edo Grande to the Big Bow brought with\nthem from the older Southwestern frontier a large body of floating\nliterature of the tall tale variety. The influence of this folk\nmaterial is clearly discernible in the works of Longstreet, and\nBaldwin, and other Southern humorists who preceded Mark Twain.\n\nThe literary use of the tall tale in the South seems to have been\nchecked by the Civil War, but after that struggle it found a congenial\nhome and flourished orally in the cow-camps of the new Southwest. While\nit is true that the cowboy deserves his reputation for reticence and\nreserve, it is also true that when conditions were favorable to the\nexercise of the art of story telling, he often proved an inveterate\nliar. Among the cattlemen of a generation ago books and periodicals\nwere scarce, and all sorts of shifts were resorted to for amusement. It\nis a tribute to the cowboy\u2019s adaptability that he was able to utilize\nas well as he did the resources at his command. So, while the gifted\nstory-teller was often referred to disparagingly as a \u201cwindy,\u201d he was\nwelcome around the camp-fires, and any large outfit was likely to have\none or more among its numbers.\n\nOld tales that were applicable to the new conditions survived; others\nwere adapted to the new environment; Cr\u00e8vecoeur and M\u00fcnchausen seem\nto have supplied others, though of course there is no proof that the\nSouthwestern analogues were not of independent origin. The adaptations,\nif they were such, often exhibit admirable ingenuity. Still other tales\ngrew directly out of the soil.\n\nThe cowboy liked horseplay, and took keen delight in \u201cloading\u201d the\ngreenhorn. This pastime, which usually occupied the hours after supper\nin the evening, consisted in telling for the benefit of the uninitiated\na species of yarn locally known as the \u201cwindy.\u201d If the auditor\nappeared credulous, the narrators went on vying with each other,\nheaping exaggeration upon exaggeration, consciously burlesquing the\nmisconceptions which the newcomer had brought with him from the East.\nSometimes the listener was informed by a sell at the end of the story\nthat he had been taken in; more often he was made aware of the fact\nby the sheer heights of exaggeration to which the narrative ascended;\noccasionally he accepted the story in good faith and went away neither\nsadder nor wiser. The good story-teller, then, did not demand credence.\nAll he wanted was a sympathetic listener. His reward was the joy of\nmere narrative.\n\nThe result was a literature at once imaginative, robust, and humorous:\none in striking contrast to the better known pensive and melancholy\nballads, which, taken in themselves, present a one-sided picture of the\ncowboy\u2019s character.\n\nSince much of the cowboy\u2019s romancing was done to inspire fear in the\nnewcomer, the fauna of the Southwest, really comparatively harmless,\nwas represented as dangerous in the extreme. And among the living\nthings none was better adapted to the cowboy\u2019s purpose than the\nrattlesnake. As a matter of fact, there were few fatalities from\nsnake-bite among cowmen. The rattlesnake rarely strikes without\nwarning. He presents no danger to mounted men; and when dismounted, the\ncowboy was afforded good protection by his boots. Yet because of his\nterrifying aspect, his blood-curdling rattle, and the reputation he had\nacquired in the East, the rattlesnake was an especial source of terror\nto the greenhorn; and he was the subject of many a harrowing tale told\naround the campfire, frequently as a prelude to some practical joke.\nThis means of entertainment was a well established custom in the days\nof Big Foot Wallace.\n\nIf the existing fauna could not be made impressive enough, imaginary\nanimals could be drafted into service. These mythological creatures\nwere numerous, and were not completely standardized either in\nterminology or in anatomy. Some were harmless, and the point of the\nstory was to \u201csell\u201d the greenhorn. Others were extremely ferocious,\nand the tenderfoot was advised to avoid them under all circumstances.\nHe also received minute instruction in the technique of escaping when\npursued. Like all mythological animals, they were compounded of the\nparts of well-known species.\n\nThe greenhorn\u2019s misconceptions and his conduct arising therefrom were\nfrequent themes of western windies, as well as of tales of actual fact.\n\nAnother favorite subject of cowboy yarns was the weather. The\nchangeableness of atmospheric conditions in the Southwest has long\nbeen proverbial, and many a fantastic yarn has been spun to illustrate\nthis fickleness of weather.\n\nA different type of tall tale was that involving narrow and ingenious\nescapes and hair-raising adventures. This sort of tale demanded a\nhero, but the cowboy\u2019s love of exaggeration did not lead him into\nsupernaturalism. The hero of his fiction was a mere mortal who\npossessed to a high degree endurance, agility, and the other qualities\nwhich the cowboy of necessity exemplified, and which he consequently\nadmired. The hero of the cowboy\u2019s tall tale could drink his coffee\nboiling hot and wipe his mouth on a prickly-pear. He could ride a\ntornado, but he was not a giant, the impact of whose body in being\nthrown from one would form the Great Basin of the West; and those who\nhave attributed to him such a prodigious stature have written too much\nunder the influence of the Paul Bunyan legend.\n\nNor did cowboy fiction ever become unified around a single character.\nWhen a hero was needed, his name might be invented on the spot; the\nfeats of daring might be ascribed to some local character; or the\nnarrator himself might appropriate the honors. Certain names, however,\nwere in rather general use, California Joe and Texas Jack being among\nthe more common.\n\nThe nearest living parallel to Don Quixote (in outward circumstances at\nleast) that I ever saw was an impersonator of one of these legendary\nheroes.\n\nSeveral years ago a man came to Sweetwater, Texas, and announced that\nhe was _the original_ Texas Jack. He wore khaki trousers tucked in\n\u201chand-me-down\u201d boots somewhat run over at the heels. He had on a red\nflannel shirt and bandanna. What drew attention for at least a block\nwas an elaborate belt with holster attached. The belt was four inches\nwide, and had evidently been fashioned from a \u201cback-band\u201d belonging to\na set of heavy draft harness. It was heavily studded with brass and\nglistened in the sun. The holster, when examined by officers, showed no\nevidence of ever having contained a pistol.\n\nTexas Jack seemed quite harmless. He walked the streets for a few days\nand entertained whoever would listen to him with long stories about his\nexploits in arresting bad men, a type which he said was very numerous\nin the Panhandle of Texas. It seemed that when the Rangers were at a\nloss what to do, they sent for Texas Jack, who always brought back his\nman and turned him over to the law. His technique was quite simple. He\nmerely walked in and got the bad man by the ear and led him to jail\nwhile the nonplussed officers looked on in astonishment.\n\nI later saw him at Maryneal, a village twenty miles south of\nSweetwater. There he had an antiquated singleshot, twenty-two calibre\nrifle, which he handled so carelessly that he was arrested. I never\nlearned the outcome of his sanity trial.\n\nI never saw anybody claiming to be California Joe or Pecos Bill.\n\nThis latter hero is apparently a late development, for few of the\nold-time cowmen have heard of him. Getting into print in 1923, he\nseems to be driving his rivals from the field, and is the most likely\ncandidate for epic honors in the Southwest.\n\nPractically all the tales in this collection came directly from the\ncattle folk of West Texas, among whom I was raised (not reared); and\nsome of them are associated with my earliest memories. Others I have\nlearned more recently either from cattlemen or from their sons and\ndaughters who have been my students in the University of Texas and in\nthe Sul Ross State Teachers College.\n\nI have consulted the available published material on the tall tale\nof the cattle country. The bibliography is short, and not all of the\nauthors who have written on the subject have had the advantage of a\nfirst-hand acquaintance with the yarns of the region. Aside from the\npublications of the Texas Folklore Society, my chief indebtedness is to\nMr. Edward O\u2019Reilly\u2019s \u201cSaga of Pecos Bill,\u201d published in the _Century\nMagazine_ for October, 1923 (106: 827-833).\n\nSome of this material I have published in the _Southwest Review_, the\n_Texas Monthly_, _The South Atlantic Quarterly_, and the _Publications_\nof the West Texas Historical and Scientific Society.\n\n                                                 MODY C. BOATRIGHT.\n\n\n\n\n                            PIZENOUS WINDIES\n\n\nThere was just enough light left in the sky to reveal the bedded herd.\nThe first night-shift had gone on. One could see the riders silhouetted\nagainst the sky as they rode around the cattle quieting them with the\ncrooning melodies of _Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie_ and _The Trail\nof \u201983_.\n\nThe men had finished supper. Some had spread their beds and were lying\nupon them. They had not yet gone through the short ritual of going\nto bed. Others sat around the campfire. Red Wallace observed that it\nwas time to hit the hay. As he started to the wagon for his bed-roll,\nhe stumbled over a small greasewood bush. A shrill rattle came from\nunderneath. Red jumped back, picking up a stone.\n\n\u201cYou dirty rascal!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cThought you\u2019d bite me, didn\u2019t you?\nOf all the nerve. Tryin\u2019 to bite me. You cheeky son-of-a-gun. Wanted to\nbite me! Take that.\u201d The rock struck the snake squarely on the head.\n\n\u201cA rattlesnake!\u201d exclaimed Lanky, a tenderfoot of the high-school age,\nwhom the boss had taken on the day before, and whom Joe Martin had\ninformally christened _Lanky_. \u201cI\u2019ve been wishing all afternoon to see\none.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll git to see all them you want to see if you stay with this\noutfit, though they ain\u2019t as numerous as they used to be,\u201d answered\nRed.\n\n\u201cAre they really as poisonous as they have the reputation of being?\u201d\nasked Lanky.\n\n\u201cPizenous?\u201d asked Red, seating himself on the bed-roll he had just\nbrought from the wagon. \u201cOne of them cut-throats took off three of the\nbest friends I ever had in this world.\n\n\u201cYou see it was like this. Poker Bill was out ridin\u2019 fence. He gits\ndown to nail up a loose wire, and one of these reptiles nabs him by\nthe heel. Bill grabs him by the tail and jist naturally flails the\neverlastin\u2019 stuffin\u2019 out of him on the fence post. Then Bill takes off\nhis boot and looks at his heel. The fang ain\u2019t teched the skin; so he\nputs back on his boot and goes on his way, thinkin\u2019 nothin\u2019 of it.\nAbout a week afterwards Bill gits a sore heel. He comes in one day at\ndinner and tells the boss he can\u2019t work that evenin\u2019 and he lays down\non his bunk and we goes off and leaves him. When we comes in at night,\nthere lays pore Bill a corpse.\n\n\u201cHe must have knowed he was goin\u2019 to die, \u2019cause there on a piece of\npaper was his will all wrote out. It says, \u2018My saddle to Red, my bridle\nto Pete, and my boots to Ed.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, we buries pore Bill, havin\u2019 a swell funeral with a circuit-rider\nto do the preachin\u2019. Ed, out of respect to the deceased, wears the\nboots to the funeral. Purty soon he gits a sore heel. \u2018Bill\u2019s boots,\u2019\nhe says, \u2018are a little too big. They made a blister on my heel.\u2019 One\nmornin\u2019 he takes to his bunk, sayin\u2019 he guessed his sock had pizened\nhis heel. That night he breathes his last. Fine man he was, too. They\ndon\u2019t make better men than Ed Wilson.\n\n\u201cJist before he dies, he calls us all to his bedside and says, \u2018Boys,\nI\u2019m goin\u2019 to the big round-up. I ain\u2019t been as righteous as I ought to\nof been, but I\u2019m hopin\u2019 the Big Range Boss will cut me into his herd.\nDave, you can have my bridle; Red, you can take my saddle; and Pete,\nyou can have my boots.\u2019 Them was the last words he ever spoke.\n\n\u201cEd\u2019s family asks us to send the corpse back to Virginia, which we\ndoes, me going along with it. And I meets Ed\u2019s family and tells\nthem what a fine man he was, and how he always done his duty, and\never\u2019thing. And fine folks they was, too.\n\n\u201cWhen I gits back to the ranch, I finds pore Pete all laid out for the\nundertaker. \u2018He died of the sore heel,\u2019 says the boss, \u2018jist like Bill\nand Ed. He says give his boots to you.\u2019\n\n\u201cBy this time I was gittin\u2019 suspicious. I takes the boots and examines\nthem close, and there in the spur-piece of the left boot is the fang of\nthat dirty, low-down, cut-throat reptile. I takes the pliers and pulls\nout the fang, and to make shore it don\u2019t cause any more devilment, I\ntakes a spade and buries it at the back of the bunk-house.\n\n\u201cThen I puts on the boots and wears them right on. This is them I got\non now. See that place right there that looks like a pinhole? That\u2019s\nwhere I pulled the critter\u2019s fang out.\u201d\n\n\u201cI guess it didn\u2019t do any more harm,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cNone to speak of,\u201d replied Red. \u201cThe boss\u2019s old hound dawg comes\nalong and sees where I buried the fang, and he forgits but what he\u2019d\nburied a bone there, and he begins diggin\u2019 like a fool. Purty soon his\npaw swells up, and we have to shoot him. But as far as I know that was\nthe end and the extent of that reptile\u2019s devilment.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well,\u201d said Hank. \u201cThat puts me in mind of a thing that happened\nto Jess Simpson and me jest before I joined this outfit. We was goin\u2019\nto a rodeo at Vega in Jess\u2019s flivver, and jest before we gits to\nLubbock, we sees a rattlesnake in the road ahead of us. \u2018Watch me git\nhim,\u2019 says Jess, and jest as the critter raises his head to strike,\nJess busts him one right in the mouth with the front tire of his Ford.\n\u2018One less venomous reptile in the world,\u2019 says Jess, and we drives on\nthinkin\u2019 that\u2019s all of that.\n\n\u201cJest as we gits to Lubbock, Jess notices that a tire is nearly down.\nHe pulls up to a little garage in the edge of town and has it fixed,\nand then we goes on. When we gits to Plainview, we notices that the\ntire is nearly flat again; so he has it fixed there. Then we goes on\nto the rodeo, and Jess wins a hundred dollars bull-doggin\u2019, and me\nseventy-five goat-ropin\u2019, which we spends and starts home.\n\n\u201cWe gits back to Plainview and stops at the same garage where we had\nour tire fixed comin\u2019 up, and we notices a new man changin\u2019 tires.\n\u2018Where\u2019s the feller that was here last week?\u2019 says Jess. \u2018He was so\ngood to us and fixed our tire so good I thought I\u2019d bring him a little\nsnake medicine,\u2019 says Jess, sort of winkin\u2019.\n\n\u201c\u2018Pore feller. We buried him yesterday,\u2019 says the man. \u2018His hand all\nswole up and he died.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Now ain\u2019t that too bad,\u2019 says Jess. \u2018Fine man he was. I never seen\nhim till we stopped here last week on our way to Vega, but soon as I\nlooked him in the eye, I says to my pal here (meanin\u2019 me), \u2018There\u2019s a\nfine feller. I\u2019m sort of funny that way,\u2019 he says. \u2018When I first see a\nman, I can look him in the eye and tell whether he\u2019s any \u2019count or not.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Tell his family that two of his true friends lament his death,\u2019 I\nsays. \u2018I reckon we better be gittin\u2019 on.\u2019\n\n\u201cWe drives on wonderin\u2019 if that dirty reptile did cause the pore\nfeller\u2019s death. \u2018We\u2019ll stop at Lubbock,\u2019 says Jess, \u2018and see if the\nfeller there is all right.\u2019 And so we drives up to the little garage,\nwhich is a one-man outfit, and there was a woman runnin\u2019 it.\n\n\u201c\u2018Where is the man that was here last week?\u2019 says I.\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh, my husband?\u2019 says the woman. \u2018We laid him away last Tuesday,\u2019\ntears comin\u2019 in her eyes as she spoke.\n\n\u201c\u2018I\u2019m a pore cowpuncher,\u2019 say I, \u2018and I spent all my money at the\nrodeo, but I\u2019ll write you a draft on the boss for a month\u2019s wages, and\nit\u2019ll be honored too, you needn\u2019t be worried about that.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I\u2019ll do the same,\u2019 says Jess.\n\n\u201c\u2018You gentlemen are very kind,\u2019 she says, \u2018but I couldn\u2019t accept it.\nBesides, our home and business is paid for, and there\u2019s the insurance\nmoney.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018How did it happen?\u2019 asks Jess.\n\n\u201c\u2018I guess it was blood-pizen,\u2019 she says. \u2018His finger swelled up, and\nhe got sicker and sicker and died. Are you all friends of his?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That we are,\u2019 says Jess, \u2018and I want to say right here that there\nnever was a better man than--than your husband.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw, there wasn\u2019t,\u2019 says I, \u2018and we wish you good luck. We\u2019ll have to\nbe gittin\u2019 away.\u2019\n\n\u201cWe drives off overcome with sorrow on account of the death of them two\nmen. Sometimes yet when I\u2019m ridin\u2019 along by myself, I think of them in\ntheir graves, and I feel that me and Jess somehow had a hand in it,\nand I\u2019d jest give my hoss and saddle if it hadn\u2019t happened. Naw, sir,\nLanky. If you see one of them critters in the road, don\u2019t run over him.\nYou might be the innocent means of takin\u2019 off several lives.\u201d\n\nThe fire had died to a bed of coals. It was no longer possible to see\nthe night herders, but the indistinct songs reached the camp. Lanky was\nseated on his bed-roll. The sitters had dwindled to four.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t know they were that bad,\u201d observed Lanky.\n\n\u201cThat bad!\u201d said Joe Martin. Joe was a veteran of the open range and\nof the overland trail. Far and near he was known by the name of \u201cWindy\nJoe,\u201d but Lanky had not learned of this last fact.\n\n\u201cThat bad!\u201d said Joe again. \u201cThem snakes that Red and Hank told you\nabout must of been baby snakes. They couldn\u2019t of been real, he-men,\nvenomous reptiles like the one that killed Ike Morgan. Ike was one of\nthe best friends I ever had in this world. He worked on the Yellow\nHouse when Red and Hank here was wearin\u2019 foldin\u2019 britches.\n\n\u201cIke was some cowhand, even if he did have a wooden leg. I reckon I\nmight as well tell you how he got his wooden leg, while I\u2019m about it.\nYou see it was like this. Ike was ridin\u2019 the range one winter day, and\nas he started up a little canyon, his hoss fell and caught Ike\u2019s leg.\nThe critter broke two of his own legs in the fall, and there he was on\nIke\u2019s leg and couldn\u2019t git up. And there was pore Ike wonderin\u2019 if he\u2019d\nstarve before anybody found him.\n\n\u201cPurty soon Ike smelled a norther, and the next thing he knowed, the\nnorther was there, and the next thing he knowed after that, he had\nicicles on his nose. Ike knowed he\u2019d freeze to death, and that _muy\npronto_ if he didn\u2019t find some way to git loose. He figgered and\nfiggered. That was one thing about Ike, he always used his head. Well,\nhe figgered and figgered, and purty soon he looked around, and he\nseen an axe about a hundred yards off. He \u2019lowed some nester had been\nhaulin\u2019 wood out of the canyon and had lost his axe. And mighty glad\nIke was of the nester\u2019s hard luck, too. And jest to show you the nerve\nof the man, he goes over and gits the axe and chops off his own leg,\nand he didn\u2019t have any chloroform, either, it not bein\u2019 wormy season,\nand gits his self loose and walks ten miles into headquarters. That\u2019s\nwhat I call nerve.\n\n\u201cBut what I started out to tell you was how Ike met his death. The boss\nsent Ike to town and had the blacksmith make him a peg-leg. A fine limb\nit was, too. Ike had him a stirrup made to fit it, and he could ride\nas good as ever. Many a bronc he peeled after that. He could dance like\na fool, and hold his own in any shootin\u2019 match that any tough _hombre_\never started. Shame it was that he had to be kilt by a dirty reptile.\n\n\u201cIke was fixin\u2019 fence in the canyon one evenin\u2019 jest at dusk. He needs\na stay for the fence, and he looks over in the bushes and sees what in\nthe dusk of the evenin\u2019 looks like a pole. He gits down to pick it up,\nand damn me, if it wasn\u2019t one of them low-down reptiles--a big specimen\nwith twenty-eight rattles and a button. And the son-of-a-gun nabs Ike\nby the wooden leg. That don\u2019t worry Ike much, and while the critter\nholds him by the peg, Ike takes out his six-shooter and sends the\ngentleman on to his happy huntin\u2019 ground, cuttin\u2019 off the twenty-eight\nrattles and the button for a keepsake--which I now have and will show\nyou some time if you\u2019ll make me think of it.\n\n\u201cIke gits on his hoss and rides to the bunkhouse where me and Ezra\nJenkins are, and when he tries to lift his wooden leg out of the\nstirrup, it won\u2019t come. Ezra and me gits the axe and the cold-chisel\nand cuts off the stirrup from around the peg and brings Ike in the\nhouse. By that time the leg is as big as a steer, and it is all we can\ndo to carry him in. Ezra gits his fencing hatchet and me the choppn\u2019\naxe, and we begins to try to reduce Ike\u2019s leg to its natural and proper\nsize. We trims and we trims, and the leg swells and swells. And the\nmore we trims, the more it swells. However, for the first ten hours\nwe gains on the swellin\u2019, but we begins to tire and there\u2019s nobody to\nspell us. I takes the axe and keeps Ezra busy packing out the chips\nand splinters. We works all night choppin\u2019 and trimmin\u2019 and packing\nout, but we gits weaker and weaker, and the swellin\u2019 keeps gainin\u2019 on\nus. Finally, after three days, we jest naturally gives tetotally out,\nand has to set down and see pore Ike die.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said Lanky, \u201ca bite on the wooden leg shouldn\u2019t have given him\nany pain. How did it kill him?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you see it was like this,\u201d replied Joe. \u201cHis leg jest swelled\nand swelled till it got so big it jest naturally smothered him to\ndeath. Fine feller he was too, one of the best friends I ever had in\nthis world.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere was jest one good thing about it,\u201d added Joe. \u201cEzra and me had\nenough kindling wood to do us all winter.\u201d\n\nJoe chunked up the fire and put on the coffee pot.\n\n\u201cHave a cigarette?\u201d offered Lanky.\n\n\u201cRoll my own,\u201d said Joe, fishing out a shuck.\n\nIt was Hank\u2019s turn. \u201cToo bad about Ike,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t doubt\na-tall it\u2019s so, like you say, fer I seen a similar case. Very similar\ncase, except it wasn\u2019t a man\u2019s leg.\n\n\u201cMe and Jim Arbury hitched up the hosses one mornin\u2019 and went out to\nbring in a little stove-wood. He headed out towards a little mesquite\nthicket, and jest before we got to it, I seen the lead hoss shy.\n\n\u201c\u2018What\u2019s the matter with old Pete?\u2019 I asks Jim.\n\n\u201c\u2018What\u2019s the matter with him?\u2019 Jim says. \u2018My God, man,\u2019 says he, \u2018look\nat that reptile! big as a fence post!\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd shore nuff there\u2019s a great big rattler a-holt of the wagon\ntongue. He\u2019d nabbed it, and he wouldn\u2019t let go.\n\n\u201cJim knowed exactly what to do. He jumped down and pulled out the\ncouplin\u2019 pin, lettin\u2019 the double-tree go, and drove the team out of the\nway. \u2018Grab the axe,\u2019 he says. Well, I jumped out with the axe and begun\nwork. I shore hated to do it, but I knowed it had to be done. I had to\nchop off the wagon tongue, and be damn quick about it too, to save the\nwagon.\u201d\n\n\u201cThem tales of yours and Joe\u2019s jist made me think how lucky Jack\nPierson and me was not to be kilt one time,\u201d said Red.\n\n\u201cThe boss sends us out in the winter time to fence a section\nstarve-out. We puts up the posts on three sides and then we finds that\nthe boss hasn\u2019t figgered right, \u2019cause there ain\u2019t none fer the other\nside. We starts to the canyon, thinkin\u2019 we\u2019d have to cut some and snake\n\u2019em out. We gits to the rim-rock, and there we sees what looks like\na lot of cedar logs. We remarks on our good luck and wonders how the\ntimber got there, but when we drives up close, we finds a bunch of big\nhibernatin\u2019 reptiles. There was ten thousand, I guess.\n\n\u201c\u2018Cuss the luck,\u2019 says Jack; \u2018I thought we\u2019d found our posts.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018We have,\u2019 says I; \u2018and why ain\u2019t we? Them critters are big enough and\nstiff enough. We\u2019ll take \u2019em along.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018You\u2019re the doctor,\u2019 says Jack.\n\n\u201cWell, we gathers up the biggest and the straightest and loads \u2019em\nin. We find we don\u2019t have to dig post-holes. I\u2019d stand one of the\ncritters on his tail, and Jack would drive him in the ground with a\ntwelve-pound sledge-hammer. We stapled on the wire, and told the boss\nto come out and inspect the job.\n\n\u201c\u2018Boys,\u2019 he says, \u2018you do have a brain, leastways one between you. You\nsaved at least a week\u2019s work. I\u2019ll let you go to Kansas City when we\nship again.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWas the fence permanent?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cIt was till spring,\u201d said Red. \u201cYou see, when spring come, them\nreptiles jist naturally thawed out and come to, and crawled off with a\nwhole mile of wire. Good six-wire fence we had made, too--hog-tight,\nhorse-high, and bull-strong.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it true,\u201d asked Lanky, \u201cthat rattlesnakes and king snakes are\nnatural enemies and fight each other?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know about that,\u201d said Joe, \u201cbut I\u2019ll tell what I seen once.\nStrange thing it was too. I come upon a king snake and a rattlesnake\none time fightin\u2019 for dear life. Each one would grab the other and then\nstick his head under his belly for protection. Finally, jest at the\nsame time, they nabbed each other by the tail and begun swallering.\nThere they was, jest like a ring; and they swallered and swallered, and\nthe ring got littler and littler. Jest then I heard a panther yell, and\nI looked up jest a minute--jest a fraction--and when I looked again,\ndamn me, if them snakes wasn\u2019t gone. I looked for \u2019em I reckon an hour,\nand it was right out on the open prairie where there wasn\u2019t any holes\nor rocks, and I never could find them critters.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_I feels somethin\u2019 tappin\u2019 me on the leg._\u201d]\n\n\u201cNow, most rattlers,\u201d said Red, \u201cis jist like bad men. They\u2019re jist\nnaturally mean and will bite you when you ain\u2019t lookin\u2019, no matter\nhow kind you are to them. You\u2019ll find one onct in a while, however,\nthat\u2019s a purty decent sort of chap. I recollect one in particular which\nwas a gentlemanly critter.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re the first man I ever heard speak a good word for a\nrattlesnake,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cI couldn\u2019t make no complaint about the conduct and behavior of this\nparticular rattlesnake,\u201d said Red. \u201cHe treated me decent enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did he do?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Red, \u201cI was fishin\u2019 one time out on the Pecos, and I run\nout of bait. What I wanted was a frog, and I looked and looked, for\nnearly an hour and couldn\u2019t find none. Finally I seen a rattlesnake\ntryin\u2019 to swaller a big bullfrog. I thinks to myself, \u2018Well, I\u2019m goin\u2019\nto have that frog, even if I git snake-bit.\u2019 You see I had a bottle of\nsnake medicine in my pocket--Old Rock and Rye it was.\n\n\u201cI put my foot on that rattlesnake\u2019s tail and took a holt of that\nfrog\u2019s hind legs, and jist naturally extracted him right out of the\nreptile\u2019s mouth. Well, instead of gittin\u2019 ringy and showin\u2019 fight, like\nmost rattlers would, this here snake jist looks so sad and down in the\nmouth that I couldn\u2019t help feelin\u2019 sorry for the critter.\n\n\u201c\u2018Here, old feller; cheer up,\u2019 says I, givin\u2019 him a swig of Old Rock\nand Rye out of my bottle. He takes a dram and crawls off jist as pert\nas a fresh cuttin\u2019 hoss.\n\n\u201cI puts the frog on my hook and sets down to fish. Jist as I was about\nto git a bite, I feels somethin\u2019 tappin\u2019 me on the leg. I looks down,\nand damn me, if there ain\u2019t that rattlesnake back with two frogs in\nhis mouth.\u201d\n\nHank stirred up the coals and put on a mesquite grub. Lanky gave him\nhis cue by asking if rattlesnakes ever got in people\u2019s beds.\n\n\u201cOccasionally,\u201d said Hank. \u201cOccasionally, though they ain\u2019t as thick as\nthey used to be. One time I woke up in the night, thinkin\u2019 it was about\ntime for me to stand guard. I felt something cold on my chest. I knowed\nwhat it was. I says to myself, \u2018Now, Hank, keep cool. Keep cool.\u2019 All\nthe time I was easin\u2019 my hand back around to the top of my head to git\na-holt of my six-gun. I was as careful as I could be, but I reckon the\ncritter got on to what I was doin\u2019, for jest as I was about to touch\nthe gun, he raised up his head and opened his mouth to strike. Then I\nlet him have a bullet right in the mouth. That was the quickest draw I\never made.\u201d\n\n\u201cI got in a fix jest like that one time,\u201d said Joe, \u201cexcept, fool like,\nI didn\u2019t have my gun handy.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did you do?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, \u201cafter thinkin\u2019 it over and seein\u2019 there wasn\u2019t\nnothin\u2019 I could do, I jest shet my eyes and went back to sleep, and\nwhen I woke up in the morning, the critter was gone. Jest crawled off\nof his own free will and accord.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Red, \u201cthat shows what a tenderfoot you was, and Hank,\ntoo. If you\u2019d jist of put hair rope around your bed before you went to\nsleep, them snakes wouldn\u2019t of come in.\u201d\n\n\u201cI had read that in stories,\u201d said Lanky, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know if it were\nreally true.\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue as the gospel,\u201d said Red.\n\n\u201cHow does it work?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cTickles their bellies,\u201d replied Red. \u201cA rattlesnake jist can\u2019t stand\nticklin\u2019. One fall when we was workin\u2019, the cook one night didn\u2019t make\ncamp till dark. Then we found out he had bedded us in a regular den of\nreptiles. We made our beds right up techin\u2019 each other, and put hair\nropes on the ground all around the whole outfit. The next mornin\u2019 we\ncounted a hundred and twenty-nine rattlesnakes around the beds. They\nhad jist naturally tickled their fool selves to death tryin\u2019 to crawl\nover the rope.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe critters, however, ain\u2019t so numerous as they used to be in Pecos\nBill\u2019s time,\u201d said Joe. \u201cThat man almost put \u2019em out of business in his\nday.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did he do that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cBill was a very smart and ingenious lad,\u201d said Joe. \u201cHe was the\nfirst man to capture a whiffle-poofle; he was the first man to train\nprairie-dogs to dig post-holes; and he was the first man to do a lot\nof things. Among other things he invented a way to slay rattlesnakes\nwholesale. When Bill wanted to capture or exterminate any sort of\nreptile or bird or beast, he would study the critter\u2019s habits and find\nout what his weakness was; then he would go off and study and study,\nand purty soon he would come back with a way all figgered out. Bill\nalways used his head. He put in two of the best years of his life\nstudyin\u2019 rattlesnakes. Not that Bill was afraid of \u2019em. But one of the\ncritters bit his horse one time, and then he got mad. But he never let\non. He jest went out and made friends with \u2019em and lived with \u2019em, and\nnoticed their habits and their diet and where they liked to live at\ndifferent times of the year, and all that.\n\n\u201cBill discovered that rattlesnakes had rather have moth-balls to eat\nthan anything under the sun. A rattlesnake will leave a young and\ntender rabbit any day for a moth-ball. Bill found out likewise that a\nrattlesnake jest can\u2019t stand chili powder. Those two clues give him an\nidear. First he took some chili powder and soaked it in nitroglycerin.\nHe rolled this into little pills and coated them with moth-ball.\n\n\u201cThen he took these balls and scattered \u2019em around where the reptiles\nstayed. Well, the critters would come out and find the moth-balls and\nswaller \u2019em right down, not thinkin\u2019 there might be a ketch somewheres.\nPurty soon the outside coating would melt off, and the chili powder\nwould burn the critters on the inside. This would make \u2019em mad, and\nthey\u2019d beat their tails against the ground and rocks, which exploded\nthe nitroglycerin and blowed \u2019em into smithereens. We used to kill \u2019em\nthat way here on the ranch, but the boss made us quit after one of the\ncritters crawled under a steer and blowed him into atoms.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d think that would be a rather dangerous method,\u201d said Lanky. \u201cBut\nwhat is that whiffle-poofle you mentioned a few minutes ago?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, you\u2019ll learn when you git a little older,\u201d replied Joe. \u201cYou\u2019d\nbetter hit the hay now, Lanky. You stand next guard.\u201d\n\nLanky bent down to untie his bed-roll. Then he jumped straight into the\nair. \u201cMy God, I\u2019m bitten!\u201d he yelled.\n\n\u201cBring the butcher knife and the coal-oil,\u201d said Hank, \u201cand heat a\nbrandin\u2019 iron.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpect we ought to cut his hand off right now before the pizen\nspreads,\u201d said Red. \u201cWhere\u2019s the axe?\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, lad, don\u2019t let \u2019em buffalo you,\u201d said Joe. \u201cYou ain\u2019t bit a-tall.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there\u2019s blood on my hand,\u201d said Lanky; \u201csee.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a shore sign you ain\u2019t bit,\u201d said Joe. \u201cThat\u2019s the snake\u2019s\nblood; see. That\u2019s the very snake Red kilt.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut he struck me,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cShore he did. Them devilish critters will strike after they have their\nheads cut off. Reflex. That\u2019s what they call it. Dirty trick they\nplayed on you.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well,\u201d said Red. \u201cThe critter\u2019s head is gone. Still I think\nwe better cut his hand off to make shore. Them things is so pizenous\nthe bite might kill him anyway. I seen a man bit jist like that one\ntime....\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd he never was right in his head again,\u201d said Hank.\n\n\u201cWhich one of you was it?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\n\n\n                                 SPEED\n\n\nOn Lanky\u2019s second night in the cow camp, there were many allusions to\nhis snake-bite.\n\n\u201cNow, Lanky, watch out for rattlesnakes and don\u2019t git bit again,\u201d said\nHank.\n\n\u201cI hope you\u2019ll recover without an operation,\u201d said Red, \u201cbut still I\nthink we ought to of cut your hand off. No tellin\u2019 what might happen.\nOught to be on the safe side.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t let \u2019em buffalo you, Lanky; don\u2019t let \u2019em buffalo you,\u201d said\nJoe. \u201cYou ain\u2019t such a greenhorn as lots of chaps I\u2019ve seen. Why, when\nRed here first come to this outfit, he was so ign\u2019rant he didn\u2019t know\nsplit beans from coffee. He thought you had to have a gun to shoot\ncraps; he thought a dogie was somethin\u2019 you built houses out of. He\nthought a lasso was a girl, and _remuda_ a kind of grass. When the boss\ngot ringy, Red said he was a wrangler. Why, he even thought a cowboy\nwas a bull.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was nearly as bad as old _Borrego_ Mason\u2019s sheep-herder,\u201d said\nHank. \u201cI reckon Joe\u2019s told you about him, ain\u2019t he, Lanky?--No?\n\n\u201cWell, a guy comes down from the East and tries to git a job runnin\u2019\ncattle. He \u2019lowed he\u2019s jest graduated from college--Harvard or Yale,\nor some of them big schools up there. Said he\u2019d been a big athlete and\nplayed in all sorts of games and run in big foot races, and the like.\n\u2019Lowed he come to Texas to be a big rancher. He said, though, he\u2019d be\nwillin\u2019 to begin at the bottom and work his way up, and for the time\nbein\u2019 he\u2019d take a job as a common cowhand.\n\n\u201cWell, he went to all the outfits in the whole country, and he couldn\u2019t\ngit anybody to take him on.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, it was mostly on account of his lingo. He wouldn\u2019t talk United\nStates, like other people. He wouldn\u2019t ask for a job. He was wantin\u2019\na \u2018position\u2019 or \u2018employment,\u2019 with a \u2018future\u2019 to it. And he wouldn\u2019t\nsay \u2018wages\u2019, but always asked about \u2018remuneration\u2019 and \u2018emolument\u2019 and\nthe like. Some of the bosses didn\u2019t know what the hell he was talkin\u2019\nabout; some of \u2019em said he must be a rustler; and others said they\nwouldn\u2019t hire a damn foreigner until he learned to talk United States,\nor at least Mex\u2019can.\n\n\u201cAnd so the pore feller had to hire himself to a damn sheep man. It\nnearly broke his heart. It makes me sorry for the pore fool every time\nI think of it.\n\n\u201cAnd when Old Man Mason took him down to the sheep pens and turned out\nthe _borregos_, and the pore greenhorn seen he was goin\u2019 to have to\nwalk, he jest naturally broke down and cried. He told Old Man Mason\nthat his sweetheart back East had jest died and that he\u2019d come out West\nto git over it.\n\n\u201cOld Man Mason told him the first thing to do was to take them sheep\nout to graze. He told him to be shore to git \u2019em back by night, and to\nbe damn shore to look after the lambs and git every one of \u2019em back in\nthe pen. If he didn\u2019t there\u2019d be some tall hell-raisin\u2019 in the camp.\n\n\u201cOld Man Mason went back to his shack and set in the shade all day.\nFinally it was might nigh dark, and the herder hadn\u2019t come in with\nthe woollies. The Old Man waited a while longer, and still the herder\ndidn\u2019t show up. About nine o\u2019clock he started out to the pens about\nthree hundred yards from the house, to see if he could see anything of\nthe critters. On the way out he met his new sheep-herder.\n\n\u201c\u2018Did you have any trouble with the sheep?\u2019 says he.\n\n\u201c\u2018Not with the sheep,\u2019 says the herder. \u2018But,\u2019 he says, \u2018the lambs\noccasioned me considerable annoyance and perturbation.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, Old Man Mason didn\u2019t know what the hell he meant, and he didn\u2019t\nwant to ask, for fear he\u2019d appear ign\u2019rant; so went on to the pens to\nsee what was the matter with the lambs.\n\n\u201cThe moon was up, and he could see over the rock fence. The sheep was\nall huddled up in the middle of the pen, and the Old Man counted a\nhundred and seventy-five jack-rabbits runnin\u2019 around and buttin\u2019 the\nfence, doin\u2019 their damndest to git out.\u201d\n\n\u201cI got up considerable speed once myself,\u201d said Joe, \u201conce when I was\na good deal younger than I am now; but it wasn\u2019t no rabbit that I was\nchasin\u2019; it was a prairie-fire.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou mean it was the prairie-fire chasing you, don\u2019t you?\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Joe. \u201cIt was jest as I was sayin\u2019. I was chasin\u2019 the\nprairie-fire. It wasn\u2019t the prairie-fire chasin\u2019 me.\n\n\u201cIt was back in the early days one time when I was out huntin\u2019 cattle\non the plains. One day in August, I recken it was, I follered off some\ncow tracks and got lost from the outfit. I was out two days without\nnothin\u2019 to eat. Finally I come on a little herd of buffalo. I shoots a\ngood fat cow and cuts off a piece of tenderloin.\n\n\u201cWell, when I begins to look around for somethin\u2019 to cook it with, not\na thing can I find. There ain\u2019t a stick of timber, not a twig, nor a\ndry buffalo chip nowhere around there. I was hungry enough to have et\nthat meat raw and bloody, and I needed it too, for I was so hungry that\nI was weak in the knees. But somehow I never was much of a raw meat\neater. It ain\u2019t civilized.\n\n\u201cWell, as I was sayin\u2019, I couldn\u2019t find no regular fuel; so I\ncalkilated I\u2019d try the prairie grass, which was long and curly and dry.\nI gathers up a big pile, puts the hunk of meat on my ramrod and holds\nit over the grass and lights a match. Jest one flash and the fire\u2019s all\ngone, except the wind comes up all at once and sets the dang prairie on\nfire.\n\n\u201cWell, sir, I takes out after that prairie-fire, holdin\u2019 my meat over\nthe blaze. It would burn along purty regular for a while; then all of\na sudden it would give a big jump and tear out across the plains like\nhell after a wild woman, and I\u2019d have to do my dangest to keep up with\nit. Well, I chased that prairie-fire about three hours, I recken, but\nI finally got my meat cooked. I et it--and it shore did taste good,\ntoo--and started back across the burnt country to where I had shot the\nbuffalo. Damn me, if I hadn\u2019t run so far in three hours that it took me\ntwo days to git back. There my hoss was waitin\u2019 fer me, and I found the\noutfit the next day.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah, that was purty good runnin\u2019,\u201d said Red. \u201cBut you nor the feller\nHank was a-tellin\u2019 about either wasn\u2019t as swift as one of them college\nchaps we had on an outfit where I worked once. Not near so swift. Been\na good thing for him if he hadn\u2019t been so fast. Too swift for his own\ngood.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow was that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s the way it was,\u201d said Red. \u201cHe was a greenhorn, but he was\na-learnin\u2019 fast. Would of made a good cowhand, pore feller. He got to\nbe a purty good shot with a Winchester and six-shooter both, and he was\nalways practicin\u2019 on rabbits and coyotes and prairie-dogs, and things.\nThen he decided he\u2019d have a lot of critters mounted and send \u2019em back\nto his folks.\n\n\u201cWell, he gits everything he wants but a prairie-dog, but he jist can\u2019t\ngit a-holt of one of them critters.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre they hard to hit?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOh, he could hit \u2019em all right. He got so he could plug \u2019em right in\nthe eye, but they always jumped in their holes and got away. They\u2019ll do\nit every time, Lanky; they\u2019ll do it every time. Why, one day he took\nhis forty-five Winchester and shot one of the critters clean in two,\nbut the front-end grabbed the hind-end and run down the hole with it\nbefore he could git there.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_Jist as he pulls the trigger, he runs to beat hell._\u201d]\n\n\u201cWell, he asked the boss if there was any way he could git one, and the\nboss told him to take good aim, and jist as soon as he pulled the\ntrigger to run jist as fast as he could and maybe he\u2019d git there in\ntime to grab the critter before he got away.\n\n\u201cWell, he goes out and finds a prairie dog a-settin\u2019 on his hole\na-barkin\u2019 in the sun. He pulls out his six-shooter and takes a good aim\nat the critter\u2019s eye, and jist as soon as he pulls the trigger, he runs\nto beat hell, jist like the boss told him to. He got there in time, all\nright, and bent down to grab the prairie-dog; but jist as he touched\nit, the bullet hit him in the back jist below the left shoulder-blade.\nWhen we found him that evenin\u2019, he was crippled so bad we had to shoot\nhim. Too bad, too, for he had the makin\u2019s of a first-class cowhand.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Joe, \u201cthem guys you all been tellin\u2019 about was mighty\nswift, but you don\u2019t have to go back East to find speed. Why, I\u2019ve seen\nan old cowhand that growed up right here in Texas that could of beat\nany of them Eastern fellers.\n\n\u201cTell you what I saw once. One day after the spring work was over, a\nbunch of us decided to have a baseball game. Well, we chose up, but we\nliked one man havin\u2019 enough men for two teams.\n\n\u201c\u2018What we gonna do?\u2019 says I. \u2018I guess we\u2019ll have to git along with two\nfielders on our side,\u2019\n\n\u201cPete Dawson spoke up and says, \u2018All you men git in the field, and I\u2019ll\npitch and ketch both.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd damn me, if that\u2019s not what he done. He got on the pitcher\u2019s box,\nwhich was a prairie-dog hole, and he\u2019d throw a ball so it whistled like\na bullet; then he run in a half circle and git behind the batter and\nketch it.\n\n\u201cNot a batter ever teched the ball. It was jest three up and three down\nwith them, and there wasn\u2019t nothin\u2019 for the rest of us to do.\n\n\u201cWhen it was Pete\u2019s bat, he\u2019d jest knock a slow grounder out toward\nfirst, and he\u2019d make a home run before the first-baseman could git\na-holt of the ball. We beat \u2019em ninty-six to nothin\u2019.\n\n\u201cOne time Pete was with us when we was movin\u2019 a bunch of wild Mexico\nsteers. One night the fool brutes stampeded. We all jumped on our\nhosses to try to turn \u2019em and git \u2019em to millin\u2019.\n\n\u201cWe all had good hosses, especially Pete, who had a fine hoss he\u2019s won\nlots of money with; but we couldn\u2019t git ahead of them steers. They was\njest too swift for us.\n\n\u201cDirectly Pete jumps off and takes his slicker and six-shooter with\nhim. He circles around, and in no time, after tromping about a half a\ndozen jackrabbits to death, he\u2019s in front of that herd.\n\n\u201cWe all expects to see him git kilt, but he jest trots along in front\nof the critters wavin\u2019 his slicker and firin\u2019 his six-shooter. After\nhe\u2019d run that way about ten miles, the herd got to millin\u2019 and purty\nsoon they quieted down, and we never had no more trouble with \u2019em.\n\n\u201cThat jest naturally took all the pertness and spirit out of them\nbrutes. They was so ashamed of themselves that from then on out they\nwas as gentle as a bunch of milk cows.\n\n\u201cThe only thing that hurt Pete was that when it was over, his nose was\nbleedin\u2019 like six-bits.\u201d\n\n\u201cGot too hot, I suppose,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Joe, \u201cthat wasn\u2019t it. The bleedin\u2019 was from the outside.\nHe jest run so fast that the wind jest naturally peeled all the hide\noff his nose, and he had to keep it tied up for about ten days till he\ngrowed some more skin.\u201d\n\n\u201cI bet a hoss and saddle,\u201d said Red, \u201cthat he couldn\u2019t of turned old\nman Coffey\u2019s bull like that. That brute had speed. One time old man\nCoffey shipped out a train-load of cattle from where he was ranchin\u2019\non the Lapan Flat; and this here bull decides he wants to go with \u2019em.\nThey cut him back, and the train pulls out in the night.\n\n\u201cWell, sir, the next mornin\u2019 them cowpunchers looks out the caboose\nwinder, and there\u2019s that bull trottin\u2019 along by the train, bellerin\u2019\nand pawin\u2019 up the dust, and hookin\u2019 at the telegraph poles as he passes\n\u2019em by. He follered that train all the way to Kansas City and had to be\nshipped back.\n\n\u201cThe fellers started to sell him to the packers jist for spite, but\nthey knowed old man Coffey never would git over it if they did.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah, I heard of that critter,\u201d said Joe. \u201cFact is I rode a hundred\nmiles jest to see him once, but I didn\u2019t git to.\n\n\u201cWe gits to old man Coffey\u2019s place about dinner time, and we goes in\nand asks if he\u2019s home.\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw, he ain\u2019t at home right now,\u2019 says his wife. \u2018Git down and look\nat your saddles, and come in and eat.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Where is he this mornin\u2019?\u2019 I asks.\n\n\u201c\u2018He left \u2019bout nine o\u2019clock,\u2019 she says. \u2018He\u2019s goin\u2019 over to Phoenix.\nSaid he might go by Roswell.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I reckon we won\u2019t git to see him,\u2019 I says.\n\n\u201c\u2018Jest unsaddle your hosses,\u2019 she says. \u2018I look for him back about an\nhour by sun, that is, if he don\u2019t have no hard luck.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Wonder if you could tell us where his fast bull is?\u2019 I says. \u2018We come\nover to see him.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh,\u2019 she says, \u2018he\u2019s ridin\u2019 the bull. That\u2019s how I know he\u2019ll git back\ntonight.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI reckon that bull could of outrun a milamo bird,\u201d said Hank.\n\n\u201cNo doubt he could,\u201d said Joe. \u201cNo doubt he could.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is a milamo bird like?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\nBut Joe forestalled Hank by saying, \u201cLanky, you didn\u2019t git enough sleep\nlast night, what with all that rattlesnake skeer. I seen you noddin\u2019\nwhile Hank was a-tellin\u2019 about that sheepherder of Old Man Mason\u2019s,\nthough I couldn\u2019t blame you much for that. Go to bed, son, and maybe\nwe\u2019ll see a milamo bird tomorrow.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                            BIRDS AND BEASTS\n\n\nIt was Lanky\u2019s third night in cow camp. The herd had been bedded, and\nthe first night shift had gone on. Lanky, sore of muscle, but extremely\ncontented, sat by the fire with Red Wallace, Hank Williams, and Joe\nMartin, the men who on the first night had imparted to him the esoteric\nlore of the rattlesnake, and who on the second night had entertained\nhim with yarns of marvelous speed.\n\nLanky had proved a good listener. He had done his best to appear\ncredulous. He had interrupted seldom, and when he had, he had always\nfollowed his cue, and had propounded only the questions that the\nnarrators wanted him to ask. It is not surprising, therefore, that on\nthis night the older men were loaded for him.\n\nIt was Red Wallace that discharged the first missile.\n\n\u201cWe \u2019as speakin\u2019 of milamo birds last night,\u201d he observed. \u201cI seen sign\ntoday, lots of sign.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s funny; I done that very same thing,\u201d said Hank. \u201cI seen, I\nreckon, a hundred holes where they\u2019d been feedin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you suppose we\u2019re likely to see any of them?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNot likely,\u201d said Joe, \u201cnot likely. They\u2019re mighty scerce these days,\nmighty scerce, and mighty shy, mighty shy. I ain\u2019t seen one in years.\nYou might keep your eye peeled though; we might happen on one any time.\nWe might. You never can tell.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah, we might,\u201d broke in Hank. \u201cStill we\u2019re more likely to hear one\nthan to see one. They\u2019ve got a way of knowin\u2019 when somebody\u2019s about,\nthough he\u2019s a mile off. Yeah, they\u2019re mighty hard to see, \u2019specially\nthese days; mighty hard to see.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat sort of a bird is the milamo?\u201d asked Lanky. \u201cWhat is he like?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d replied Hank, \u201che\u2019s like a milamo. They ain\u2019t nothin\u2019 else jest\nlike him.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs he large or small?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s rather large,\u201d said Hank, \u201cthough not as big as an ostrich\nI reckon, though somewhat bigger than a crane, which he somewhat\nresembles in general makeup and conformation.\n\n\u201cIn the fall when the rains comes and fills up the lakes, like they are\nnow, the critters comes in, or used to, and feeds around the edges of\nthe water. They\u2019ve got long legs like stilts for wadin\u2019 in the water, a\nlong neck, and a long beak that they uses to bore into the soft ground\nfor the earthworms, which is their principal food and diet.\n\n\u201cI ain\u2019t talkin\u2019 about the little puny earthworms like school boys use\nto fish with. Naw, sir, a milamo bird would be ashamed of his self if\nhe et one of them kind. He digs down into the ground and ketches the\nbig fellers, shore-nuff he-man worms that looks like inner-tubes. I\u2019ve\nseen holes you could hide a hoss\u2019s leg in where them critters \u2019ad been\nescavatin\u2019 for grub. More than one good cow hoss has had to be shot\nfrom steppin\u2019 in holes that these birds has made, not to say nothin\u2019 of\nthe good cow-hands that has had their necks broke.\n\n\u201cBut as I was sayin\u2019 about the milamo bird, he jest has a way of\nknowin\u2019 where the big worms lives, and when he comes to a place where\nhe knows one of them big fellers is all curled up takin\u2019 a nap down\nunder the ground, he sticks his bill into the soil and begins to bore\nand bore, walkin\u2019 around and around. Purty soon his bill goes out of\nsight, then his head, then his neck, clean up to his shoulders. That\u2019s\nthe way you can slip up on one of \u2019em. If you can ketch him in jest\nthat stage, maybe you can git sight of him.\n\n\u201cWell, he bores around a while in the hole he has dug; then all at once\nhe sets back like a hoss when there\u2019s a big steer on the other end of\nthe rope; and you know then he\u2019s got a-holt of one of them big worms.\nThe more he pulls, the more the worm stretches. If he lets up the least\nbit, the worm jerks his head and neck back into the hole. I seen one\nonce a-bobbin\u2019 up and down like that for two hours and fifteen minutes\nbefore he finally got his worm.\n\n\u201cWell, he pulls and tussles and yanks and jerks, and finally the worm\njest can\u2019t stand it no longer and has to let go. He shoots out jest\nlike a nigger-shooter when you turn it loose, and like as not he hits\nthe milamo in the eye. But he\u2019s a good-natured bird and don\u2019t git ringy\nabout it. Jest why he does it, I don\u2019t know; maybe he\u2019s so glad to git\nthe worm out, or maybe he sees the joke\u2019s on him, after all; anyhow,\nwhen the worm comes out and hits him in the eye, he jest naturally gits\ntickled and rears back on his hind legs and laughs through his beak so\nyou can hear him a mile or more.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see,\u201d said Lanky. \u201cA strange bird.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut mighty shy,\u201d replied Hank, \u201cmighty shy.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah, they\u2019re shy critters all right,\u201d agreed Joe, \u201cbut they ain\u2019t\nnear as shy as the whiffle-pooffle. Why, them things is so bashful they\ndon\u2019t feel comfortable unless they\u2019re hid in the bottom of a bottomless\nlake.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre they a fish?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNot exactly a fish,\u201d explained Joe, \u201ca sort of cross, I reckon,\nbetween an eel and a gila monster.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre there any around here?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, maybe,\u201d replied Joe; \u201cmaybe a few. Still I doubt it. You see\nright around here the lakes go dry sometimes in the dry season, and\nthe whiffle-pooffle wants water, and plenty of it, _mucha agua_.\nStill there may be a few. Out in the Roswell country, they used to be\nnumerous. Also in Toyah Creek and Leon waterholes. I expect, though,\nthey\u2019re gittin\u2019 scerce out in them parts now. All game is gittin\u2019\nscerce. Still, them critters is mighty hard to ketch, and it\u2019s jest a\nfew that knows how to do it. Mighty few in fact.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo people fish for them, then?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cSome does,\u201d replied Joe, \u201cbut it ain\u2019t no use to fish for \u2019em with a\nregular fishin\u2019 outfit. I\u2019ve seen them rich dudes from the East come\nout with their fine tackle, rods and reels and all that fool finery,\nand fish and fish for \u2019em all day long and never git a nibble. Still\nthey can be caught.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow does one catch them?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cSo far as I know it was Pecos Bill that discovered the method. Durin\u2019\nPecos Bill\u2019s time there was a lot of people that didn\u2019t believe there\nwas any sech animal as the whiffle-pooffle livin\u2019 in the bottom of the\nlakes. Bill said he knowed there was, and he\u2019d show \u2019em. So he studied\nand studied, and finally he found a way to capture the critters. First\nhe gits together a rowboat, a long post-hole auger, and a can of oil.\nThen he hunts up the funniest story-teller he can find and takes him\nalong and sets out.\n\n\u201cHe rows out on the lake to where the water\u2019s deep; then he takes the\npost-hole auger and bores a hole clean down to the bottom so as the\nwhiffle-pooffle can come up to the top. Then he has the story-teller\ntell the funniest stories he can think of--all about Pat and Mike and\nan Englishman and a Scotchman, and all that.\n\n\u201cPurty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears.\nThen Bill tells the story-teller to git funnier. Then purty soon the\nwhiffle-pooffle is so amused that he comes up through the hole and\nsticks out his head. Bill tells the man to keep on gittin\u2019 funnier\nand funnier till the whiffle-pooffle comes clean out on top of the\nwater. Then Bill begins to ply the oars, very gentle-like at first.\nThe whiffle-pooffle is so interested and amused that he jest naturally\ncan\u2019t help but foller the story-teller, who all the time is gittin\u2019\nfunnier and funnier. Bill rows faster and faster, all the time makin\u2019\nstraight for the bank.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and\npricks up his ears._\u201d]\n\n\u201cJest before he gits there, when he is rowin\u2019 as fast as he can, he\npours the oil out on the water and cuts sharply to the left. By that\ntime the whiffle-pooffle has got up so much speed on the slick water\nthat he can\u2019t stop, and he jest naturally slides right out on the\nbank. Then Pecos Bill lands on him. If you ever git one of the critters\non the land, he\u2019s jest as helpless as a year-old baby. But they\u2019re\nmighty bashful, mighty bashful.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn that particular, thay ain\u2019t a-tall like the club-tailed\nglyptodont,\u201d said Red, \u201cwhich is a very ferocious and vicious beast.\nI\u2019ll tell you, Lanky, when you\u2019re ridin\u2019 around in the canyons and meet\none of them fellers, you\u2019d better not git into any disputes with him\nabout your highway rights. Jist give him the whole road and don\u2019t argue\nwith him. And be careful you don\u2019t hang around under the rim-rock when\nthem critters is around.\u201d\n\n\u201cI take it they are animals,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cYeah, I guess they belong to the kingdom of beasts,\u201d replied Red.\n\u201cSome people call \u2019em whang-doodles, but they ain\u2019t real whang-doodles,\nbein\u2019 much bigger and more ferocious. They\u2019re purty scerce now, but\nwhen we work the canyon tomorrow, I can show you places where they have\nbeen. Yes, sir, I can show you the very spot where one of them fellers\ntook off one of the very best friends I ever had in this world.\u201d\n\n\u201cA sort of mountain lion, I suppose,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cSon, one of them babies would make a mountain lion look like a kitten.\nBesides, they don\u2019t belong to the feline species nohow, bein\u2019 more like\na kangaroo in build, and about sixteen hands high when on all-fours,\nthough most of the time they hop along on their hind legs and tail and\nkeep their forepaws ready to biff anything that gits in their way. And\nif one of them critters hits you--well, you\u2019re lucky if they find\nanything to bury.\n\n\u201cHowever, that ain\u2019t their main method of combat; that ain\u2019t the way\none of \u2019em took off my dear friend--Jack Snodgrass was his name. The\nglyptodont has got a big flat tail made out of stuff like cow\u2019s horn,\nexcept there ain\u2019t no bone in it. This tail bein\u2019 springy is a great\naid and help in more ways than one. He can jump along with it and clear\nthe brush, and he can land on it when he wants to jump off of a cliff,\nand he don\u2019t feel no bad effects from the jar.\n\n\u201cWell, I started to tell you how one of them beasts took off my dear\nfriend Jack Snodgrass. Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall\nhe was workin\u2019 the canyon, jist like we\u2019ll be tomorrow, and Jack gits a\nglimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was always a curious lad; so he tarried\naround to see what the critter was about. Jack was on the other side of\na canyon, anyway, and he \u2019lowed he\u2019d have plenty of time to make his\nstampede if the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack jist looks\nacross to see what\u2019s goin\u2019 on.\n\n\u201cDirectly the glyptodont gits wind of him and looks at him right\nstraight for a minute or two. But Jack still ain\u2019t worried none, havin\u2019\nthe canyon between him and the ferocious beast. He jist stands there\nand watches him to see what he is about. Purty soon he notices that the\nglyptodont is spadin\u2019 around on the ground with his tail. Presently\nhe scoops up a big boulder, jist like you\u2019d lift it with a shovel. He\ncarries this on his tail, bein\u2019 careful not to let it fall off, and\nbacks up and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder. Jack begins\nto try to figure out a way to capture the brute; he \u2019lows if he ever\ncould git him broke, he\u2019d be a mighty handy animal to have around the\nplace about tankin\u2019 time.\n\n\u201cWell, the glyptodont walks over to the other side of the rock he\u2019s set\nup and squats on his hind legs; then he draws up his front legs and\nbegins to whirl around and around on his hind legs, jist like a spool\nof barbed wire on a crowbar when you\u2019re stringin\u2019 fence. After he spins\naround a while, he lets down his tail, which hits the rock he\u2019s set up,\nwhich comes through the air like a cannon-ball. That was the last thing\npore Jack ever knowed. We buried him, pore feller, next day--that is,\nall of him we could find. When we\u2019re over there tomorrow, I\u2019ll show you\nthe place where he got kilt, as well as a lot of other places where\nthem critters has catapulted rocks up and down the canyons jist to keep\nin practice and for the fun of seein\u2019 \u2019em roll. Yeah, them club-tailed\nglyptodonts is ferocious animals.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re vicious brutes,\u201d agreed Joe, \u201cbut they ain\u2019t got much on the\ngwinter.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never heard of a gwinter,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d replied Joe, \u201cdid you ever hear of a godaphro?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you ever hear of a side-swiper?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you ever hear of a mountain-stem-winder?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I never heard of them, either.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019re really all one and the same thing, but the real true\nand correct name is gwinter.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what sort of a beast is he?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, he\u2019s a grass-eatin\u2019 quadruped,\u201d said Joe, \u201csomething like a\ncross between a buffalo and a mountain-goat, only he\u2019s a lot more\nferocious. The peculiar thing about the gwinter is his legs. Instead\nof havin\u2019 four legs of equal length like a critter ought to have, or\ntwo short legs in front and two long ones behind, like the glyptodont,\nthese brutes have two long legs on the downhill side and two short legs\non the uphill side. This is mighty convenient for \u2019em, since they don\u2019t\nlive on level ground nohow. Some of \u2019em has their right legs long, and\nsome of \u2019em has their right legs short, dependin\u2019 on which way they\ngraze around the mountains. The Chisos and the Davis and the Guadalupe\nmountains used to be full of \u2019em. Up there, them critters was thicker\nthan the buffalo or the antelope on the plains, but they\u2019re gittin\u2019\nmighty scerce now. Still, they took off many a cow-hand in the early\ndays, and sometimes yet a tenderfoot gits in the way of one of \u2019em and\ndon\u2019t come back home to the chuck wagon at night.\n\n\u201cIf one of them critters ever starts toward you, Lanky, don\u2019t for\nanything let him know you\u2019re scered. If you try to run, he\u2019ll git you\nshore. Jest stand there and look him right in the eye like you was glad\nto see him. He\u2019ll be comin\u2019 right toward you with his head down like\na bat shot out of a cannon. Still, don\u2019t move, and if you\u2019re in the\nsaddle, hold your hoss. Jest let that gwinter alone till he gits in two\nsteps of you, then take a couple of steps down the hill. He can\u2019t run\nthe other way, and you\u2019ll be safe. Ten to one he\u2019ll be so mad about it\nhe\u2019ll try to foller you, anyway, and when he gits his short legs down\nhill, he\u2019s a goner. Jest stand by and watch him roll down the mountain\nand break his fool neck. That\u2019s one reason why they\u2019re so scerce, the\ncowboys learned that trick. Another reason is that they fought among\nthemselves too much. You see, them that has their long legs on the\nright used to meet them that has their long legs on the left as they\ngrazed around the mountains. And when two of \u2019em met like that, they\nalways tangled up. Finally they fought till the weaker side all got\nkilt, so now there\u2019s only one kind on each mountain. On some mountains\nit\u2019s the right-leggers, and on some mountains it\u2019s the left-leggers.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf somebody would capture one alive,\u201d said Lanky, \u201che could sell him\nto a circus for five thousand dollars.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s been tried, son; that\u2019s been tried,\u201d replied Joe. \u201cHowever,\nyour figger\u2019s too small. Once when I was punchin\u2019 cattle in the Chisos,\nBarnum and Bailey sent a feller all the way down from New York City\nwith fifty thousand dollars to pay any man that would cage him a\ngwinter. For a long time he couldn\u2019t git nobody to try it, till finally\nhe come to our outfit.\n\n\u201c\u2018I won\u2019t endanger the lives of my men in any sech manner and fashion,\u2019\nsays the boss. \u2018However,\u2019 he says, turnin\u2019 to us, \u2018if any of you men\nwant to try it on your own hook, you can. They ain\u2019t much work to do\nright now, and I\u2019ll let you off for a few days.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, we gits our best mounts and ropes, and looks after our cinches,\nand sets out. We scouts around a while, and shore nuff we hears one\nsnort right near the foot of Egg-shell Mountain. We lets out our\nwildest yells and fires off our six-shooters, and somehow, by luck I\nguess, we gits the critter buffaloed, and he goes tearin\u2019 around the\nmountain and us after him. Each time he goes around the mountain he\ngits a little higher. We sees our hosses is goin\u2019 to give out if we\ndon\u2019t figger out some way to spell \u2019em. We \u2019lows that since we got the\ncritter on the run, two of us will be enough to go around the mountain,\nand the others stays put. Then on the next round, two more goes, and so\non and so forth. Each time we gits a bit nearer the top. Finally, we\nall joins in, in order to be there when he gits to the top and can\u2019t go\nno further. And purty soon there he is at the top.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did he escape?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy, the brute jest turned right through his self, jest clean wrong\nside out like a sock, and run the other way.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that was the last you saw of him?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we used to see him occasionally, as we knowed by his long legs\nbein\u2019 on the other side; but when winter come, he caught cold and died.\nAnd that\u2019s what you\u2019ll do, Lanky, if you set there by the coals and\nshiver. You\u2019d better git a little shut-eye before you stand guard.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                            WIND AND WEATHER\n\n\nThe day had been blustery enough, and Lanky\u2019s eyes were red from the\nsand\u2019s having cut into his eyeballs. There was still dust in the air,\nbut at twilight the wind had subsided, and Lanky was experiencing that\nfeeling of intense relief that comes when the sandstorm is over.\n\nDuring the day there had been little talk. Lanky had most of the time\nridden within normal hailing distance of Red Wallace; but conversation\nwould have been difficult, and neither he nor Red had been in the mood\nfor it. At noon each man swallowed his beans and bacon as rapidly as he\ncould. Even then, he consumed a considerable quantity of sand.\n\nThe old-timers were sitting expectantly around the fire. Their\nexperience with tenderfeet told them that Lanky would open the\nconversation, and that the topic would be the wind.\n\n\u201cTerrible day we had,\u201d he observed. \u201cHow much sandstorm weather are we\nlikely to have?\u201d\n\n\u201cSon,\u201d replied Red, \u201cwhat you\u2019ve seen today is the gentle zephers of\nspring. You ain\u2019t seen a real sandstorm.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d replied Lanky, \u201cI\u2019d like to know how I\u2019m to know one when I\nmeet it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you, Lanky,\u201d said Red. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you exactly how you\ncan know. Do you recollect seein\u2019 a log-chain hangin\u2019 suspended from\nthe big hackberry tree in front of the bunkhouse?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat immense chain?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Red. \u201cThat\u2019s a log-chain. And you wondered what it was\nup there for, no doubt. Well, it\u2019s to tell when there\u2019s a sandstorm.\nAs long as it\u2019s hangin\u2019 straight down, we know there ain\u2019t no wind to\nspeak of. When it hangs out at an angle of forty-five degrees, we speak\nof a slight breeze. It\u2019s only when she\u2019s stickin\u2019 straight out parallel\nto the ground that it\u2019s correct and proper to speak of a windstorm.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d think winds like that would blow all the houses and windmills\nover,\u201d observed Lanky.\n\n\u201cIt ain\u2019t only the houses and windmills,\u201d said Hank. \u201cIt\u2019s real-estate.\nWhy, there was a feller come in here one time and filed on a section of\nland in Colonel Slaughter\u2019s pasture, and a big sandstorm come along,\nand he never did find that section. He advertised in all the papers for\nit, offerin\u2019 a reward for its return, and he got lots of answers from\npeople down in the brush country that had stray sections on their hands\nthat they wanted to git rid of, but he looked \u2019em over and said none of\n\u2019em had his brand on \u2019em. And so he had to go back East.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah, the wind does some mighty funny things,\u201d said Joe. \u201cI come dang\nnear losin\u2019 the best saddle hoss I ever had on account of a sandstorm.\u201d\n\n\u201cI guess he got against a drift fence where the tumbleweeds and sand\ncollected and buried the critter alive,\u201d said Hank.\n\n\u201cNaw, that wasn\u2019t it,\u201d replied Joe, \u201cthough I\u2019ve dug many a cow-brute\nout of the sand drifts. It wasn\u2019t that. In them days I was workin\u2019\ncattle out in the Monahans country. One evenin\u2019 the boss tells me to\nswing up a little draw, sayin\u2019 the wagon would be at the head. Well, I\ngot out of the draw jest at dark, and I looked around, but I couldn\u2019t\nsee no campfire anywheres in sight. I rode around a while, but still\nnot seein\u2019 no signs of the wagon, and bein\u2019 tired, I decided to turn\nin. I was scered to turn my hoss loose, (Brown Jug was his name) for\nfear he\u2019d strike off to the remuda and leave me there afoot. So I\nstakes him to a little cottonwood bush on top of a mound. I knowed\nbetter than to hobble the critter, for he was wise to walkin\u2019 off with\nthe hobbles on. Well, when I got him staked out, I took off the saddle,\nwhich I used for a pillow, and the blanket, which I used for a bed, and\nwent to sleep.\n\n\u201cIn the mornin\u2019 when I woke up and looked around, the scenery wasn\u2019t\nexactly familiar. There was a big cottonwood tree which I couldn\u2019t\nremember seein\u2019 the night before, and I wondered how I come to miss\nit. And I looked some more, and there wasn\u2019t any Brown Jug in sight\nanywheres. I thinks to myself, the critter never played a dirty trick\nlike that on me before, and I \u2019lows he must be around somewheres.\nShorely, I says to myself, I ought to be able to find the bush I tied\nhim to. So I whistles three times, and then I hears a weak nicker \u2019way\nup in the top of the tree, and I looks up, and damn me if there wasn\u2019t\nthat pore critter, with his tongue hangin\u2019 out, dang nigh choked to\ndeath.\n\n\u201cThen I seen what had happened, I\u2019d tied the hoss on top of a\nsand-dune. The wind had come up and the sand had blowed away. What I\ncalculated on bein\u2019 a bush was in fact a great big tree--so dang big in\nfact, that the thirty-foot lariat wouldn\u2019t let pore Brown Jug more than\nhalf way to the ground. If I hadn\u2019t woke up jest when I did, the pore\nbrute would of choked to death shore.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did you get him down?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOh, that was easy,\u201d said Joe. \u201cIn them days I always had my old\nsix-gun by me, and I jest whipped her out and put a bullet through the\nrope and let Brown Jug down. The fall didn\u2019t seem to hurt him none, and\nafter he blowed a little while, he was as pert as ever.\n\n\u201cHowever, the wind got up again in the middle of the mornin\u2019, and the\nonly way I could keep the hoss on the ground was to tie big rocks to\nthe horn of the saddle.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat shows you\u2019ve got more sense than a prairie-dog,\u201d said Hank,\n\u201cwhich surprises me. Many a time on the South Plains durin\u2019 a\nsandstorm, I\u2019ve seen them critters ten feet in the air, diggin\u2019 with\nall their might, tryin\u2019 to git back in their holes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Red, \u201cand it was the funniest\nsight I ever saw caused by a sandstorm. One day in the spring the boss\nsent me out to pizen prairie-dogs. He was one man I didn\u2019t work for\nlong; he jist couldn\u2019t stand to see a man not doin\u2019 somethin\u2019. So when\nthe wind would git bad and he didn\u2019t want to go out his self, he would\nsend us out to ride fence and pizen dogs and the like.\n\n\u201cWell, this time I rode over to where I knowed there was a big town,\nand I rode up, and what do you suppose I saw? The sand was all blowed\naway, and there was them holes stickin\u2019 forty feet in the air. I\nnever knowed before that time how crooked them critters made their\nresidences.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe wind\u2019s purty hard on the rodents sometimes,\u201d said Hank. \u201cI knowed\na wind, however, that helped out a pore human down on Sulphur Draw that\nwas about to starve. This feller had come in to farm, and he raised a\ncribful of corn, but the ranchers wouldn\u2019t buy it because it wasn\u2019t\nshelled, and wouldn\u2019t go in a morral. So the pore farmer was about to\nstarve, and his old lady and kids to boot.\n\n\u201cThis feller was jest fresh from the sticks and didn\u2019t have much\nconfidence in anybody, anyway, and he \u2019lowed the ranchers was waitin\u2019\nfor a chance to steal his corn. So he nailed up the crib door good and\ntight. He noticed a knothole in one of the walls, but he saw it was too\nlittle for an ear of corn to go through; so he jest let that go.\n\n\u201cOne day a wind come up, and the farmer and his folks hid in the dugout\nlike prairie-dogs, and the next day the wind laid, and they crawled out\nand looked around; and there was corn cobs scattered all alongside the\ncrib. The old man thought shore somebody had stole his corn, but when\nhe got the crib door open, he saw it there all shelled as purty as if\nhe\u2019d done it his self.\n\n\u201cHe was a sort of ignorant and superstitious man, and the next day when\nI happened by, he says to me that the fairies had come and shelled his\ncorn. Well, I never did take no stock in fairies and the like, and I\nknowed there must be a reasonable and sane explanation somewheres. So\nI picked up one of the corn cobs and stuck it in the knothole. It was\njest a good tight fit. Then I told the old man what must of happened.\nThe wind got up and would of blowed all his corn out of the crib, but\nthe knothole wasn\u2019t big enough for an ear to go through. Hence each\near got shelled, and all the corn was left in the crib. It was jest as\nsimple as that. Perfectly natural. If them old fellers we read about\nthat believed in fairies and witches, and all that crap, had jest of\nused their heads, they\u2019d found out that everything\u2019s natural and simple\nenough. They put me in mind of Mex\u2019cans. But as I was about to say, the\nold man sold his corn and got on purty well.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere was a farmer close to us one time,\u201d said Joe, \u201cthat lost his\nmilk cows in a curious manner. He had a little patch of pop-corn, and\none hot day the cows broke into the patch and started eatin\u2019 it up. All\nof a sudden that corn begun poppin\u2019 and flyin\u2019 every which away.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid the shooting grains kill the cows?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Joe. \u201cWhen the fool critters saw all that pop-corn flyin\u2019\nthrough the air, they thought it was snow, and jest naturally froze to\ndeath.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you ever have tornadoes out here?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cYou mean cyclones?\u201d asked Joe. \u201cWell, yes, sometimes. A queer thing\nhappened to me one time up here jest below the Caprock. We was goin\u2019 up\nthe trail, and one evenin\u2019 it was hot as blazes and sultry and still.\nThe cattle was gittin\u2019 nervous and we was all expectin\u2019 hell to break\nloose any time. And shore nuff it did. A cloud come up in the northwest\nand it thundered and lightened, and then the storm struck us. Them\nsteers jest naturally histed their tails and left the country. I was on\na good hoss, but it was all I could do to stay in sight of them cattle.\nMy pony was givin\u2019 me all he had, and he wasn\u2019t gainin\u2019 on them steers\nnone. Neither was the other boys gittin\u2019 close to \u2019em.\n\n\u201cD\u2019rec\u2019ly I looked back over my shoulder like, and there was them\nclouds bilin\u2019 and whirlin\u2019 around in the sky; then all at once a funnel\ndrops down and takes out after me. I started quirtin\u2019 my hoss. I feel\nright mean about it yet when I think about it, for he was doin\u2019 his\nbest to ketch that herd, and he couldn\u2019t do no more.\n\n\u201cWell, the next thing I knowed I was up in the air still in the saddle\nwith my hoss under me, whirlin\u2019 round and round like a top. That\ncyclone carried me around in the air like that for a half an hour or\nmore, me scered all the time that it was goin\u2019 to drop me. But it\ndidn\u2019t. After a while it sets me down jest as gentle as a mother with\nher baby.\n\n\u201cI looks up, and there\u2019s the herd comin\u2019 hell-bent for election right\ntoward me. I gits off my slicker and fires off my six-shooter and turns\nthem steers and gits \u2019em to millin\u2019. Purty soon the other boys rides\nup, and we gits \u2019em quieted down, and the whole outfit has to set up\nand sing to \u2019em all night.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_Jist as I teched the crown a feller yelled out._\u201d]\n\n\u201cThe next day we counted \u2019em out, and we hadn\u2019t lost a head; not a\nsingle cow-brute was missin\u2019. If it hadn\u2019t been for that cyclone,\nwe\u2019d been gathering cattle for a week, and then likely we wouldn\u2019t of\nfound \u2019em all.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the way it is,\u201d said Red. \u201cSome winds is good and some winds is\nbad, but I\u2019d rather have sandstorms and risk a cyclone once in a while\nthan to have mud in the rainy season like they have on the Black Land\ndivide.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe found lots of mud when we drove through last fall,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cYou jist thought you found mud,\u201d replied Red. \u201cYou ought to have\nseen them flats before they begun makin\u2019 roads. When I first hit that\ncountry, they was jist fencin\u2019 off the lanes, and when I got a job, the\nboss put me to ridin\u2019 fence. One day I was ridin\u2019 along by the lane,\nand I looked over and there was a good, brand-new Stetson hat layin\u2019 on\nthe top of a mud-hole. I thinks to myself, \u2018That\u2019s a good hat, and I\nmight as well have it as the next feller.\u2019 So I got down and got a-holt\nof a fence-post to steady myself, and reached out to git it. Jist as\nI teched the crown a feller yelled out: \u2018Hey, what you doin\u2019 there?\u2019\nhe says. Then I noticed for the first time that there was a man\u2019s head\nstickin\u2019 out of the mud. I asked the feller if he needed any help, but\nhe said he was ridin\u2019 a mighty good hoss, and he guessed he\u2019d make it\nthrough all right. He afterwards got to be a mighty good friend of\nmine. Pete Jackson was his name.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, sir,\u201d said Joe, \u201cspeakin\u2019 of mud, that puts me in mind of one\nexperience I had goin\u2019 up the trail in \u201983. We was kinda late in\ngittin\u2019 through, and the rainy weather had already set in before we\ncrossed the Black Land divide. We hadn\u2019t hardly got across when we\nbegun to notice that our hosses was losin\u2019 all their pertness. The\nboss\u2019s pet cow-hoss got as lazy as a jackass. My own favorite hoss,\nBrown Jug, jest got sleepier and sleepier, till finally he jest laid\ndown and went to sleep and never did wake up. We lost half of our\nremuda jest like that.\n\n\u201cThe boss was terribly worried because he didn\u2019t like the idea of\ntrainin\u2019 on foot, and besides he didn\u2019t know whether his hands would\nstay with him or not if he didn\u2019t have nothin\u2019 for \u2019em to ride. Well,\nI figured there must be a cause of hoss sickness jest as there is for\neverything else. So I begins to take note. I notices that all the sick\nhosses has mud-balls on their tails. Then I guesses what must be the\nmatter. The weight of the mud on the critters\u2019 tails was makin\u2019 sech a\npull on the brutes\u2019 hides that they jest couldn\u2019t shet their eyes. And\nI figured that bein\u2019 unable to shet their eyes, they was jest naturally\ndyin\u2019 for sleep. I tells the boss, and we cuts off the balls of mud. As\nsoon as we would cut one off, the critter would fall into a deep sleep,\njest like Adam in the Bible. Some of the worst ones slept steady for\nfour days and nights, and then woke up fresh and pert as ever.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill,\u201d said Red, \u201cit ain\u2019t the mud and it ain\u2019t the wind that makes\nTexas weather bad; it\u2019s the sudden and quick changes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d said Hank; \u201cthat\u2019s right, as our new boss found out\nonce. He \u2019lowed he was goin\u2019 to keep a record of the weather. So\nhe comes home with a brand-new thermometer and hangs it up on the\nfront porch, and calls us boys to look at it. Well, sir, while we was\nstandin\u2019 there the mercury runs up to about ninety or a hundred to git\na good start. Then all of a sudden, down she goes with sech a jar that\nshe jest naturally knocks the bottom right out of the tube and ruins\nthe boss\u2019s new thingamabob. Good instrument it was too; not jest a\nmercantile advertisement, but a good one that he had bought and paid\nmoney for.\n\n\u201cBut that didn\u2019t faze that man none. He sent off back East somewheres\nand had one made to order with a rubber cushion in the bottom of the\ntube to take up the jar when the mercury fell. He got a patent on the\nidear and got rich. His thermometers are in use all over the Southwest.\nThey\u2019re the only kind that\u2019ll stand the climate.\n\n\u201cThis feller was jest crazy about his new thermometer. He was always\nlookin\u2019 to see how cold it was or how hot it was. Once a norther\ncome up in the night, and he jest had to git up and go look at his\ninstrument. He struck a match so he could see, and the match jest\nfroze, and he had to build a fire and warm it up before he could blow\nit out.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat might sound a bit windy to a feller that didn\u2019t know the\ncountry,\u201d said Joe, \u201cbut it\u2019s probably so. I seen sunshine freeze right\non the streets of Amarillo one time. Durin\u2019 one of the long cold spells\nthey had up there, all the chickens died for want of sleep. You see,\nthey couldn\u2019t tell when it was night, and the sunshine stayed froze so\nlong they jest naturally died.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeakin\u2019 of things freezin\u2019,\u201d said Red, \u201cI\u2019ve seen words freeze. Once\nwe was out in a blizzard cuttin\u2019 drift fences, and tryin\u2019 to point\nthe herds to the canyons. And we\u2019d yell and cuss the critters, but we\ncouldn\u2019t even hear ourselves. Well, sir, we finally got the brutes into\nthe brakes and was on our way back when it started moderatin\u2019. All of a\nsudden we heard the dangest mess of yellin\u2019 and cussin\u2019 and cow-bawlin\u2019\nthat you ever heard tell of. Presently we recognized the very words we\nhad spoke on the way down.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seems to me,\u201d said Lanky, \u201cthat I learned a story something like\nthat from Addison and Steele.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoubtless,\u201d said Red, \u201cdoubtless you did. This that I was tellin\u2019\nabout happened right over here on Addison and Steele\u2019s outfit. I was\nworkin\u2019 for \u2019em at the time.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Hank, \u201cthem northers come mighty sudden at times. One\ntime Bill Anker and me rides up to a tank, and the day\u2019s so warm and\npurty we decides to go in swimmin\u2019. We was jest ready to strip off,\nwhen all of a sudden we notices the bullfrogs all along the dam jumpin\u2019\nout of the willows like bats shot out of a cannon. They hit the water\nall right and went under, but them critters got fooled that time. They\npoked out their heads like they always do; and there they was froze\ntight as a hat-band in the ice. All along the side of the tank for\nabout ten feet from the dam, the ice was jest naturally speckled with\nfrog heads.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat puts me in mind,\u201d said Joe, \u201cof a tale Bill Bishop used to tell.\nBill said one time he started in swimmin\u2019 and dove off of a high bluff\ninto a deep hole of water. But jest as he was leavin\u2019 the bluff, a\ndrought come and dried up all the water. Bill thought shore he\u2019d kill\nhis self on the rock bottom of the creek-bed, but down comes a rise\nfrom a rain up above and fills up the hole jest in time to save him.\u201d\n\n\u201cLucky,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Joe, \u201cI guess he was, yet not so powerful lucky, after all.\nJest as he was stickin\u2019 up his head, it got froze in the ice like them\nfrogs Hank was tellin\u2019 you about, and he had to stay there all day\nbefore the boys come and chopped him out. Leastwise that\u2019s what he used\nto tell, but he was sech a damn windy that you never knowed when he was\ntellin\u2019 the truth and when he was tryin\u2019 to load somebody.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                        BY THE BREADTH OF A HAIR\n\n\nLanky had become intensely interested in the narratives of Joe and his\napprentices. He was happy that he had been assigned to the same guard.\nAll during the day he had been trying to think of the most pregnant\nquestion to put when the day\u2019s work should be over, and he should again\nsit with the windy trio around the campfire. He thought of one that he\nfelt sure would elicit an interesting yarn.\n\n\u201cWhat,\u201d he asked Joe, \u201cwas the narrowest escape you ever had?\u201d\n\nJoe pulled out a shuck. He reached leisurely the sack of Bull Durham\nin his vest pocket. He rolled the cigarette with deliberation. He was\nnot going to play the fool by committing himself in any superlative way\nuntil he had heard from his upstart rivals, young men trying to usurp\nthe arts and prerogatives universally recognized as belonging to the\nold.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cthat would be hard to say, hard to say. When a man\nknocks around as much as I have, and in the days when the West was\nwild, too, he\u2019s bound to of had many a close call, what with Mex\u2019cans,\nrustlers, bad men, stampedes, blizzards, and the like. However, one of\nthe worst sceres I ever had was once when I got caught in a buffalo\nstampede. I reckon you know somethin\u2019 about the buffalo?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Lanky, \u201cI\u2019ve read a little bit about them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, \u201cI can\u2019t say as I\u2019ve read very much about \u2019em. I seen\nthe plains black with \u2019em. And I\u2019ve killed a many a one in my day, too.\n\n\u201cWell, I started out to tell you what a close shave I had one time\nat Buffalo Gap. I was a fool young buck then, and one mornin\u2019 in the\nspring after I first hit that country, I heard a great roarin\u2019 and\nbellowin\u2019, and I listened a while, wonderin\u2019 what it was. Then I\nsays to myself, \u2018I bet that\u2019s a buffalo herd;\u2019 for I had heard the\nold-timers tell about \u2019em, and how they come through the pass called\nBuffalo Gap every spring, goin\u2019 north.\n\n\u201cI rides up on one of the hills that overlooks the Gap so as I could\nlook right down on the beasts as they come by. There I stops to see \u2019em\npass. I didn\u2019t git there much too soon, for right away the whole pass\nwas choked with buffalo as thick as they could crowd; jammed in closer\nthan steers in a stock car.\n\n\u201cI was ridin\u2019 a fool bronc, and he got to rearin\u2019 and pitchin\u2019, and the\nfirst thing I knowed, we was rollin\u2019 down the hill together. Well, the\nhoss turned three or four cats in the air, and first he was on top and\nthen I was, but the critter lit feet down right on top of the backs of\nthem buffalo; and I was still in the saddle and didn\u2019t have no bones\nbroke. Don\u2019t ask me whether I pulled leather or not, Lanky; don\u2019t ask\nme that.\n\n\u201cWell, them brutes begun to run, and the first thing I knowed they was\nin a regular stampede. I seen what was happenin\u2019. They was carryin\u2019 me\nand that hoss north jest as fast as they could run, which was purty\nfast. Yes, sir, purty fast.\n\n\u201cI reins the hoss around and turns him south and digs his sides with\nthe rowels; and he runs toward the south jest as fast as he could--and\nhe was a right pert pony, too.\n\n\u201cWell, sir, I rides and I rides, all the time keepin\u2019 my eye peeled for\nthe tail-end of the herd. But I sees nothin\u2019 but buffalo, miles and\nmiles of \u2019em.\n\n\u201cIt was about the middle of the mornin\u2019 when my hoss fell off with me\nlike that, and an hour by sun I was still ridin\u2019 all the time looking\nfor the end of the herd and thinkin\u2019 it shorely would come some time. I\nhappened to look to the side, and what do you think I seen, Lanky? What\ndo you think I seen?\u201d\n\n\u201cHelp coming, I suppose,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cNo sech luck,\u201d said Joe; \u201cno sech luck. It was the bushes we broke and\nthe rocks we turned over when me and that hoss rolled down the hill.\n\n\u201cWell, I rides another half hour, I guess, and I begins to feel the\nhoss quiver and shake under me, and I knowed the jig was about up.\nWhen a hoss does that way, Lanky, he\u2019s about ready to drop dead, and I\nknowed that might happen any time.\n\n\u201cPurty soon I sees an openin\u2019, and jest as that pony jumped off the\nrump of the last buffalo, damn me if he didn\u2019t drop in his tracks, dead\nas a hammer. I knowed that was goin\u2019 to happen when I felt him quiver.\n\n\u201cWell, I climbed out on the hill afoot, forgittin\u2019 to git my saddle;\nand damn lucky it was I forgot, too; for as soon as I got to the top of\nthe hill and set down on a rock to rest, I looked back, and there was\nthe main herd comin\u2019 into sight, roarin\u2019 and bellowin\u2019 like a cyclone.\n\n\u201cI had to walk back to my outfit; and several days later, I rode back\nto the pass, but all I found of that hoss and saddle was a little\ngreasy spot on the ground.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was a narrow escape,\u201d said Lanky. \u201cI suspect you have had as many\nclose calls as anybody.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I couldn\u2019t say about that,\u201d said Joe. \u201cBut I know that if that\nhoss had give out ten minutes sooner, Joe Martin wouldn\u2019t be settin\u2019\nhere talkin\u2019 to you tonight.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Hank. \u201cJoe always was a lucky cuss. If he was to fall in\na sewer, he\u2019d come out with a lily in each hand. Now, me, I was born\ntoo late. Land all took up, buffalo all gone; no more trail drivin\u2019\nup north. Still, what with reptiles and beasts and Mexico steers and\nbuckin\u2019 hosses, and the like, I\u2019ve had my share of close calls.\n\n\u201cFunny how some little thing you don\u2019t expect jest as like as not comes\nalong and takes you off.\u201d\n\n\u201cNothin\u2019 ain\u2019t got you yet, Hank,\u201d said Red. \u201cYou\u2019re here, ain\u2019t you?\nWhat you kickin\u2019 about?\u201d\n\n\u201cI was jest thinkin\u2019 how near I come to bein\u2019 kilt once. And if it\nhadn\u2019t of been for Zac Weber, I would of been.\n\n\u201cThat lad could handle a six-gun, I can tell you. I\u2019ve seen him knock\ndown six flyin\u2019 quail with his old Colt forty-five, ridin\u2019 at a high\nrun. He could turn six pigeons loose at one time and knock \u2019em every\none down before they could git away. When he went duck huntin\u2019 he\nnever packed anything but his old six-shooter. Some of the boys had\nshot-guns, but Zac said his conscience never would git over it if he\nturned one of them murderous implements loose on a pore helpless fowl.\nAnd he never shot a duck on the water, either. Not Zac. Mighty glad I\nwas that he could shoot like that, too, for he saved my life.\u201d\n\n\u201cBandit trouble?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw, worse,\u201d said Hank, \u201cthough I could tell you something about Glen\nSprings, but that\u2019s not the time Zac saved my life.\n\n\u201cHave you ever seen a centipede, Lanky?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said Lanky; \u201cI don\u2019t suppose I have.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you what they look like so as you\u2019ll know \u2019em. And\ndon\u2019t ketch \u2019em for playthings, Lanky, don\u2019t ketch \u2019em for playthings.\nJest as well pet a rattlesnake. They\u2019re flat yeller worms with a\nhundred legs, like fringe on each side, and on every foot there\u2019s a\nlittle hook that the centipede can hook into things that he walks on.\nAnd them hooks is so pizenous that if he walks across your skin while\nhe\u2019s mad, your flesh will putrefy, and you\u2019ll go as crazy as a locoed\nhoss, and like as not take to the bushes like a jackrabbit unless\nsomebody holds you. That\u2019s how pizenous they are.\n\n\u201cWell, what I started out to tell you was, one time at dinner me and\nZac was settin\u2019 on the ground about fifty feet apart facin\u2019 each\nother eatin\u2019 our beans and sow-belly. All at once I got a glimpse of\nsomethin\u2019 like a yellow streak runnin\u2019 up my vest on my bandanner, but\nI jest barely did git a glimpse and couldn\u2019t tell what it was.\n\n\u201c\u2018Is there somethin\u2019 on my neck?\u2019 I says to Zac.\n\n\u201c\u2018Good God, man!\u2019 says Zac. \u2018It\u2019s a centipede!\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, we\u2019d took off our gloves to eat, and I knowed if I tried to\nknock the critter off, I\u2019d jest make him mad, and he\u2019d git me shore.\nAnd I knowed if Zac come over to knock him off with a stick or\nsomethin\u2019, he\u2019d be dead certain to chase him off on my neck.\n\n\u201c\u2018Let him alone,\u2019 I says, \u2018and maybe he\u2019ll crawl off after while.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Jest be still,\u2019 says Zac. And he whips out his old six-shooter, and I\nhears the bullet whistle by my ear.\n\n\u201c\u2018I got him,\u2019 says Zac.\n\n\u201cAnd I takes off my bandanner, and there is jest a little speck where\nthe bullet had jest barely teched it. I always did feel grateful to Zac\nafter that, for he shore did save my life that day.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou think, then, that if the centipede had touched your skin, he would\nreally have killed you?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t think nothin\u2019 about it,\u201d said Hank. \u201cI know it. Why, I tell\nyou what happened. You see, Zac didn\u2019t have time to look what was on\nthe other side of me when he shot, but jest as he pulled the trigger,\nhe noticed an old cow-brute standin\u2019 about fifty yards off chewin\u2019 his\ncud. Well, this old steer jumped, so Zac said he must of hit him. Still\nwe couldn\u2019t see no wound on him. We roped him and looked at the critter\nclose and found a bullet hole in his dew-lap.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn his what?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy, in his dew-lap,\u201d said Hank. \u201cThat\u2019s the grissle thing that hangs\ndown from the neck of a cow-brute jest where it joins on to the\nbreast. They used to vaccinate for the black-leg by makin\u2019 a hole in\nit. We knowed the steer couldn\u2019t be hurt much there; so we turns him\nloose, and he gits up, and starts off.\n\n\u201cHe hadn\u2019t gone more than twenty steps, when his neck was all swole up,\nbig as a saddle-hoss. Then he begin to rave and charge and beller so\npitifully that we jest shot him to git him out of his misery.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s how pizenous them centipedes are. When I saw that pore brute\nall swole up and out of his head with torment, I knowed what a close\ncall I\u2019d had.\u201d\n\nLanky\u2019s attention had been divided between Red and the narrator. He\nhad glanced several times at Joe also, who was sitting complacent,\nbut not contemptuous, listening with the respect due a good liar even\nthough a comparatively inexperienced one. But Red, during the first\npart of Hank\u2019s narrative had been in a deep study. He rolled several\ncigarettes, only to throw them away after taking a puff or two. He\nappeared to listen; yet it was obvious that the narrator did not have\nhis full attention. Near the climax to Hank\u2019s tale, however, his\ncountenance brightened up, and from that time he sat quietly as one\nhaving an ace in the hole. When Hank finished, he was ready.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t have no crack shot, nor no friend of no kind to help me out\nonce when I come near passin\u2019 in my checks out in the Glass Mountains.\n\n\u201cI never did know what was the matter with that fool hoss I was ridin\u2019.\nHe\u2019d always been a mighty sensible animal--fine cow-pony, quarter hoss,\nsingle-footer, and the best night hoss on the outfit. I\u2019d rode him\nhard that day, and I thought maybe he was tired of life and took a\nsudden notion to kill his self like an English feller that come to our\noutfit and stayed a while once. Then, again, I thought he might of went\nblind all at once. I never could figger it out. Anyway, he never acted\nlike that before.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did he do?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhat did he do? He done a plenty. Still I don\u2019t blame him, pore brute.\nThere must have been somethin\u2019 the matter.\n\n\u201cYou see, I was ridin\u2019 back to the headquarters on a dark night. I\nwas about half asleep, for I knowed that old Frijole--that was his\nname--would find the way. He always could. Well, I was ridin\u2019 along\nthat way, when all of a sudden I finds us both fallin\u2019 down through\nempty space. Seemed like we never would hit the ground, and before we\ngot bottom, I figgered out what had happened.\n\n\u201cOut in the edge of the Glass Mountains there was a big sink-hole right\nout on the mesa. It was as big across as a house, and six lariats deep\nright straight down--we afterwards measured it--and Frijole had loped\noff into that dang hole with me, and there we was makin\u2019 for the bottom.\n\n\u201cI thinks to myself, \u2018This is where you pass in your checks, Red. Some\ngits it early and some gits it late, but they all gits it.\u2019 Then we\nhits bottom.\n\n\u201cI guess I was shook up purty bad, for I woke up after while, and there\nI was settin\u2019 on a dead hoss. You see, Frijole had broke his neck\nlandin\u2019, pore feller. I always will wonder what was a eatin\u2019 on him to\nmake him lope off into a hole like that. Must of been somethin\u2019.\n\n\u201cWell, I seen there wasn\u2019t nothin\u2019 I could do but wait for daylight and\nthen try to figure out some way to git out; so I jist laid down and\ntook a nap till mornin\u2019.\n\n\u201cWhen daylight come, I got up and looked around, but the walls was\nstraight up and down, and there wasn\u2019t nothin\u2019 I could git a-holt of\nto climb out. Then I took the rope off my saddle and begun to look for\nsomethin\u2019 twenty feet or so up that I could rope, thinkin\u2019 I could pull\nmyself up that far, and then maybe rope somethin\u2019 else a little higher\nup, and pull myself up again, and so on till I was out.\n\n\u201cBut there wasn\u2019t a thing, Lanky, not a bush nor a rock, nor nothin\u2019\nstickin\u2019 out I could git a loop on. Everything as slick as glass.\n\u2018Well, maybe the boys will come and hunt me,\u2019 I thinks, \u2018but how in the\nhell will they know to look down in here?\u2019\n\n\u201cI waited all day, and not a soul come: and I waited all the next day,\nand still nobody come. The third day I was still there and no better\noff than I was in the beginnin\u2019.\n\n\u201cBy that time I was wishin\u2019 I was dead, for I had drunk up all the\nwater in my saddle canteen, and I was gittin\u2019 hungry, too.\u201d\n\n\u201cCouldn\u2019t you have eaten some of the horse meat?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cYes, I guess I could of,\u201d said Red, \u201cbut at first I wouldn\u2019t out\nof friendship for the brute--for even if he did git me in there, I\nalways figgered there was somethin\u2019 wrong; he went out of his head\nor somethin\u2019--and after I got hungry enough to of et him, anyway,\nhis carcass had spoiled and was stinkin\u2019 somethin\u2019 terrible. That\u2019s\nprincipally what made it so bad. Every breath I drawed was misery.\n\n\u201cFinally I says, \u2018Red, you can\u2019t stand this no longer. You\u2019d shoot a\npore dumb brute if you saw him in torment like this.\u2019 And so I cocks\nmy six-shooter and holds it to my head, but somehow I can\u2019t pull the\ntrigger. \u2018Stand it a little while longer,\u2019 I says to myself, \u2018and if\nhelp don\u2019t come, shoot.\u2019 I done that three or four times, I guess.\n\n\u201cAfter a while buzzards begun flyin\u2019 over the hole--dozens of \u2019em\nsailin\u2019 round and round. They knowed there was somethin\u2019 dead\nsomewheres around, but they was havin\u2019 trouble locatin\u2019 it. They\nkept comin\u2019 lower and lower, till directly one comes down into the\nsink-hole. Then some more come, and they would fly right down close to\nme. \u2018I reckon you come after Frijole,\u2019 I says, \u2018but jist wait a little\nwhile and you can have me too.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd jist then I had an idear. I picks up my lariat right quiet-like\nand begins unravelin\u2019 it into little strands. In each little strand\nI tied a noose. Then I takes my seat by the side of the carcass and\njist waits. Directly a big turkey buzzard comes right down close, and\nI throws a loop over his head and fetches him down. Then I stakes him\nto my belt, givin\u2019 him about six foot of rope. After a while I gits\nanother one. I keeps on until I gits twenty of the vultures staked to\nmy belt; then I fires off my six-shooter, scerin\u2019 \u2019em all at once.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_Well, sir, them birds jist naturally lifted me right\nout of that sink-hole._\u201d]\n\n\u201cWell, sir, them birds jist naturally lifted me right out of that\nsink-hole.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou were lucky,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cLucky! Lad, that wasn\u2019t luck; that was head work. You ain\u2019t heard\nabout my luck yet. Them buzzards begun flyin\u2019 away with me, but I seen\nwhat direction they was goin\u2019, and I jist let \u2019em alone and watched the\nlay of the land. And when they had me right over a big hay-stack at the\nheadquarters of my own outfit, I reached down and unbuckled my belt,\nand damn me, if I didn\u2019t land right on the hay without any hurtin\u2019\na-tall.\n\n\u201cI walked up to the house and had a square meal--and I et, too, I\u2019ll\ntell you--and then I felt as fresh and pert as ever.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was a lucky landing,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cIt shore was,\u201d said Red. \u201cI got off light. The worst thing about it\nwas that them vultures carried off my belt; and a cracker-jack it was,\ntoo, trimmed with rattlesnake hide and gold studs. Twenty-eight dollars\nand fifty cents it cost me over the counter at K. C., Misourey.\u201d\n\nLanky expected Joe to tell the next story, but the veteran smoked\nplacidly, and graciously surrendered his turn to Hank.\n\n\u201cA thing like that nearly happened to me once,\u201d said Hank, \u201cexcept it\nwas a canyon instead of a sink hole.\n\n\u201cI ought to of had more sense than to ride a fool bronc like the\ncritter I was on around a place like that, but I was green in them\ndays. You see I was ridin\u2019 around a rimrock, lookin\u2019 out for steers in\nthe canyon down below, and down below it was, shore-nuff--five hundred\nfeet straight down--jest as straight as a wall.\n\n\u201cWell, I\u2019d rode along that way for a while, when suddenly I took a fool\nnotion to smoke. So I rolled me a fat _tamale_, and pulled out a match\nand struck it on my saddle-horn.\n\n\u201cJest then that fool bronc bogged his head and begun pitchin\u2019 and\nbawlin\u2019 like six-bits, and the next thing I knowed he\u2019d fell off that\nrim-rock. And it was five hundred feet to the bottom if it was an inch.\nWhen that hoss hit the bottom, he jest naturally spattered all over the\nscenery.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, you see,\u201d said Hank, \u201cwhen we went off that rim-rock together, I\nknowed that that saddle that I had been tryin\u2019 so hard to stay in was\nno place for me then; so I got off; and I had to be damn quick about\nit, too. I wasn\u2019t much more than off the brute when he hit the bottom.\u201d\n\nLanky expected Joe to send him off to bed. There were cattle to gather\nduring the day and to hold at night until all the pastures should be\nworked, and it was Joe who usually reminded the unseasoned boy that\nsleep was necessary, even if Lanky preferred the romancing of the older\nhands.\n\nBut Joe merely chunked up the fire.\n\n\u201cThat puts me in mind,\u201d said he, \u201cof a hunt I went on once in the\nGuadalupe Mountains. You see, we was out after big-horn sheep--used to\nbe lots of \u2019em up there, but they are \u2019bout all gone now. Few up in\nthe mountains where the tin-horn hunters never go.\n\n\u201cI was follerin\u2019 some of them critters around a ledge, and presently\nI looked around and seen where I was. The ledge was jest about a foot\nwide; and I looked down, and there was a bluff right straight down for\nfive hundred feet, and I looked up, and there was a wall five hundred\nfeet straight up. There wasn\u2019t no way to git off that ledge but to go\non or to turn back like I come, and in some places the footin\u2019 was\nmighty ticklish, mighty ticklish.\n\n\u201cWell, I walked along till I come to a slick place, and my foot\nslipped, and I had to let go my gun to keep from fallin\u2019. I shore hated\nto lose that thirty-thirty, too, for we had been friends for years, and\nmany a deer and antelope and bear and panther I had fetched down with\nit. But I jest naturally lost my balance and had to let her go to save\nmy neck.\n\n\u201cWell, not havin\u2019 any gun, I thought I had jest as well go back to the\ncamp; so I started back like I come. I goes around a little bend, and\nthere comes a mountain lion, a-creepin\u2019 along towards me, jest like a\ncat tryin\u2019 to slip up on a snow-bird.\n\n\u201cSays I, \u2018Joe, this ain\u2019t no place for you. I expect you\u2019d better go on\nthe way you first started.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo I turns around and goes back around the bend. When I gits about a\nhundred yards, there I sees a big grizzly bear comin\u2019 to meet me! and\nwhen he sees me, he sets up and shows his teeth and growls.\n\n\u201cSays I, \u2018Joe, maybe you\u2019d better go back the other way, after all.\u2019 I\nthought maybe the cougar would be gone. But as soon as I gits turned\naround--and I had to be mighty careful in turnin\u2019, for the ledge was\npowerfully narrow--when I turns around, I sees the big cat sneakin\u2019\nalong toward me. And when I look the other way, there comes the bear.\nAnd they are both gittin\u2019 closer and closer, and there I am, and it\u2019s\nfive hundred feet straight down, and it\u2019s five hundred feet straight\nup.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did you get off?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cHow did I git off? Why, I couldn\u2019t git off. They got me, but whether\nit was the bear or the cougar, I never did know.\u201d\n\nJoe finished with a flourish but without a smile.\n\nHe pulled out his watch. \u201cDoggone,\u201d he said, \u201cI never had no idear it\nwas so late. We ought to of been asleep before now. Lanky, you ought\nnot to let these boys keep you up so late. They\u2019d talk you to death if\nyou\u2019d jest set here and listen to \u2019em.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       THE GENESIS OF PECOS BILL\n\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d said Lanky, as he sat by the camp-fire with Red and Hank\nand Joe, now his fast friends, \u201cthat the cowboy\u2019s life is about the\nmost interesting one there is. I\u2019d like it. Live outdoors, plenty of\nfresh air to breathe, interesting work--that\u2019s the life.\u201d\n\n\u201cI ain\u2019t kickin\u2019,\u201d said Joe. \u201cYou see I\u2019m still at it, though I\u2019ve\ncussed it as much as anybody in my time, and swore off and quit, too,\nmore than once. But somehow when spring comes, and the grass gits\ngreen, and I know the calves is comin\u2019, somethin\u2019 jest naturally gits\nunder my hide, and I come back to the smell of burnt hair and the creak\nof saddle-leather.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Red, \u201cit\u2019s jist like a dream I had once. I dreamt I died\nand went up to a place where there was big pearly gates, and I walked\nup and knocked on the door, and it come wide open. I went in, and there\nstood Saint Peter.\n\n\u201c\u2018Come in; welcome to our city,\u2019 he says. \u2018I\u2019ve been lookin\u2019 for you.\nGo over to the commissary and git you a harp and a pair of wings.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018All right,\u2019 says I, feelin\u2019 mighty lucky to git in.\n\n\u201cAs I walked along on the gold sidewalk, I sees a lot of fellers roped\nand hobbled and hog-tied.\n\n\u201c\u2018What\u2019s the matter?\u2019 says I; \u2018Saint Peter, you\u2019re not tryin\u2019 to\nbuffalo me, are you?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw,\u2019 he says, \u2018what makes you think so? Your record ain\u2019t nothin\u2019\nextra good, but you didn\u2019t git cut back, did you? Here you are. You\u2019re\nin. Ain\u2019t that enough?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Ain\u2019t this hell?\u2019 I says.\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw\u2019, says Peter, \u2018this ain\u2019t hell a-tall.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Are you shore this ain\u2019t hell?\u2019 I asks.\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw,\u2019 he says, \u2018this ain\u2019t hell. What makes you think it is?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Why,\u2019 I says, \u2018what you got all them fellers roped and tied down for?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh,\u2019 he says, \u2018them fellers over there? You see them\u2019s cowboys from\nthe Southwest, and I have to keep \u2019em tied to keep \u2019em from goin\u2019 back.\nI think maybe they\u2019ll git range broke after while so I can turn \u2019em\nloose, but it seems like it\u2019s takin\u2019 a long time.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cHowever,\u201d said Joe, \u201cthe cow business ain\u2019t what it used to be, what\nwith barbed wire, windmills, automobiles and trucks, and the like. They\ndon\u2019t want cowhands any more; what they want is blacksmiths, mechanics,\nand the like. Still, I reckon it\u2019s a good thing, for they couldn\u2019t git\ncowhands if they did want \u2019em.\n\n\u201cNow, here\u2019s Red and Hank. Good boys, both of \u2019em. And I\u2019ve learned \u2019em\na lot about cattle; and they take money at the rodeos, but they ain\u2019t\nlike the old cowhands. I don\u2019t know jest what it is, but they ain\u2019t the\nsame.\n\n\u201cAnd they ain\u2019t but mighty few real cowmen any more. Now, take the big\nmogul of this outfit. Good feller, always pays wages every month--which\nis more than some of the old-timers could do. But he ain\u2019t no cowman.\nSets up all day at a big desk in town--has a secretary, stenographer,\nand the like. Why, if Pecos Bill had a-done a thing like that, he would\nof been so ashamed of his self, he would of jest naturally laid down\nand died.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is this Pecos Bill I\u2019ve heard you mention?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWho is he? Why, ain\u2019t you ever heard of Pecos Bill?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot till I came here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well, I reckon you\u2019ve heard of Sam Houston, and Sam Bass and\nGeneral Lee and George Washington and Pat Garrett, ain\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes, I\u2019ve heard a little about them but not anything about Pecos\nBill.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat jest shows that the fellers that make our books don\u2019t know what\nto put in \u2019em. The idear of leavin\u2019 out Pecos Bill.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut who was Pecos Bill?\u201d\n\n\u201cWho was he? Why, he was jest about the most celebrated man in the\nwhole dang cow country.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was his real name?\u201d\n\n\u201cSo far as I know the only real name he ever had was Pecos Bill. Don\u2019t\nsuppose anybody knows what his daddy\u2019s name was. You see, in his day\nit wasn\u2019t good manners to ask a feller his name, and besides it wasn\u2019t\ngood judgment either. And it ain\u2019t been so long. Many a greenhorn bein\u2019\nignorant of that little point of good manners has looked down the\nmuzzle of a six-shooter and then died.\n\n\u201cPecos Bill\u2019s daddy didn\u2019t say what they called him back in the\nStates, and nobody asked him. They jest called him the Ole Man, for he\nwas old--about seventy some odd when he came to Texas.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen did he come to Texas?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cI couldn\u2019t say about that exactly,\u201d said Joe. \u201cIt must of been right\nabout the time Sam Houston discovered Texas. Anyhow, the Ole Man loaded\nup all his twelve kids and his Ole Woman and his rifle, and all his\nother stuff in an oxwagon and lit out hellbent for Texas as soon as he\nfound out there was sech a place. They say other people that come later\ndidn\u2019t have no trouble findin\u2019 the way. They jest went by the Indian\nskeletons that the Ole Man left along his road.\n\n\u201cWell, they finally got to the Sabine River. The Ole Man stops\nhis oxen, old Spot and Buck, he calls \u2019em, and rounds up all his\nyounguns and has \u2019em set down and listen while he makes \u2019em a speech.\n\u2018Younguns,\u2019 he says, \u2018that land you see on the other side of the river\nis Texas, wild and woolly and full of fleas. And if you ain\u2019t that way\nonly more so, you ain\u2019t no brats of mine.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d always heard that Pecos Bill was born in Texas,\u201d interrupted Red.\n\n\u201cJest wait,\u201d said Joe. \u201cJest wait; have I said he wasn\u2019t? Them was the\nother kids.\n\n\u201cAs I was about to say, they crossed the river and camped for the\nnight. That was in Texas, savvy. And that night Pecos Bill was born.\nThe next mornin\u2019 the Ole Woman put him on a bear\u2019s skin and left him\nto play with his self while she made the corn-pone for breakfast. And\nright then\u2019s when they come dang near losin\u2019 Pecos Bill.\n\n\u201cBears or Indians?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNeither one,\u201d said Joe. \u201cBears and Indians didn\u2019t mean nothin\u2019 to\nthat old man. He would have et \u2019em for breakfast. Once later when the\nOle Man and the older brats was gone, the Comanches did try to git\nBill, but the Ole Woman lit into \u2019em with the broom-handle and killed\nforty-nine right on the spot. She never knowed how many she crippled\nand let git away. No, it wasn\u2019t the Indians. It was miskeeters.\u201d\n\n\u201cMalaria?\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cYou guessed wrong again,\u201d said Joe. \u201cThis is what happened. The Ole\nWoman was cookin\u2019 corn-pone, and all of a sudden it got dark, and there\nwas the dangest singin\u2019 and hummin\u2019 you ever heard. Then they seen it\nwas a swarm of big black miskeeters; and they was so thick around Bill\nthat you jest couldn\u2019t see him.\n\n\u201cThe Ole Man felt his way to the wagon and got out his gun. He thought\nhe\u2019d shoot it off in the air and scere them miskeeters away. He pointed\nthe muzzle of the gun toward the sky and pulled the trigger. What he\nseen then was a little beam of light come through. It was jest like\nbein\u2019 in a dark room and lookin\u2019 out through a piece of windmill pipe.\nThat was jest for a minute, for right away the hole shet up, and them\nmiskeeters swarmed around Pecos, and the Ole Man seen they was goin\u2019 to\npack him off if he didn\u2019t do somethin\u2019 right away.\n\n\u201cThen he happened to recollect that he\u2019d brought his hog-renderin\u2019\nkettle along; so he fought his way back to the wagon and rolled it out\nand turned it over the kid. He was scered the lad would git lonesome\nunder there by his self, so he jest slipped the choppin\u2019 axe under the\nedge of the kettle for the chap to play with.\n\n\u201cWell, them danged miskeeters jest buzzed and buzzed around the kettle,\ntryin\u2019 to find a way to git in. D\u2019rec\u2019ly they all backed off, and the\nOld Man and the Ole Woman thought they\u2019d give up and was goin\u2019 away.\nThen all at once one of them miskeeters comes at that kettle like a\nbat out of hell. He hit the kettle and rammed his bill clean through\nit; and he stuck there. Then another one come at the kettle jest like\nthe first one had; and he stuck, too. Then they kept comin\u2019, and every\none stuck. The Ole Man and the Ole Woman and the older brats stood\nthere watchin\u2019 them miskeeters ram that kettle. After each one of them\nvarmints (they was too big to be called insects) hit the kettle, there\nwould be a little ring--_ding!_ like that. Purty soon the old folks\ngot on to what was happenin. Every time a miskeeter would ram his\nbill through the kettle, Pecos would brad it with the choppin\u2019 axe.\nWell, after while them miskeeters jest naturally lifted that kettle\nright up and flew off with it. The others thought they had Pecos Bill\nand follered the kettle off. Of course the Ole Man hated to lose his\nutensil. He said he didn\u2019t know how the Ole Woman was goin\u2019 to render\nup the lard and bear\u2019s grease now; but it was worth a hundred kettles\nto know he had such a smart brat. And from that time the Ole Man would\nalways talk about Bill as a chap of Great Possibilities. He \u2019lowed that\nif the brat jest had the proper raisin\u2019, he\u2019d make a great man some\nday. He said he was goin\u2019 to try to do his part by him; so he begun\ngivin\u2019 him a diet of jerked game with whiskey and onions for breakfast.\nHe lapped it up so well that in three days the Ole Woman weaned him.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid the Ole Man settle there on the Sabine?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Joe. \u201cHe squatted on a little sandy hill on the Trinity\nsomewheres east of where Dallas is now. It was jest an accident that he\nstopped where he did.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow was that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, \u201cyou see, it was like this. They was travelin\u2019 west\nin their customary and habitual manner, which was with the Ole Man and\nthe six oldest kids walkin\u2019 alongside Spot and Buck, and the Ole Woman\nand the seven youngest kids in the wagon. Jest as they was comin\u2019 to\nthe foot of a sandy hill, a big rain come up. It rained so hard that\nthe Ole Man couldn\u2019t see the wagon, but he stuck close to them trusty\noxen of his, and they went right up the hill. When he got to the top,\nhe seen that it had about quit rainin\u2019; and he looked back and seen the\nwagon still at the bottom of the hill, and there was the brats that had\nbeen walkin\u2019 with him under it.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid the harness break?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cNaw, it wasn\u2019t that,\u201d said Joe. \u201cYou see, he was usin\u2019 a rawhide\nlariat for a log-chain, and it had got wet. I reckon you know what\nrawhide does when it gits wet, don\u2019t you, Lanky? It stretches. There\nain\u2019t no rubber that will stretch like wet rawhide. Well, that\u2019s what\nhappened to that lariat. It stretched so that the Ole Man drove his\noxen a mile up the hill without movin\u2019 the wagon an inch. Not an inch\nhad he moved her, by gar.\n\n\u201cWell, the sun was shinin\u2019 now, and it got brighter and brighter, and\nwhile the Ole Man was wonderin\u2019 what in the dickens to do next, Ole\nSpot jest dropped down dead from sunstroke. That sort of got next to\nthe Ole Man, for he said that brute had been a real friend to him, and\nbesides he was worth his weight in gold. Still, he \u2019lowed he\u2019d might as\nwell skin him. So he got out his old Bowie knife and started to work.\n\n\u201cWell, sir, while he was skinnin\u2019 Spot, a norther came up, and damn me,\nif Ole Buck didn\u2019t keel over, froze to death.\n\n\u201cSo the Ole Man decided he\u2019d jest as well stop there where he was. So\nhe told the Ole Woman to bring up the brats. He throwed the ox yoke\nover a stump; and the Ole Woman brought up some chuck and some beddin\u2019\nfrom the wagon. Then they et supper and tucked the kids into bed. The\nOle Man tried to blow out the lantern, but she wouldn\u2019t blow. He raised\nup the globe, and there was the flame froze stiff as an icicle. He jest\nbroke it off and buried it in the sand and turned in and went to sleep.\n\n\u201cThe next mornin\u2019 when he woke up, it was clear and the sun was warm.\nWell, the Ole Woman cooked a bite, and while they was eatin\u2019, here come\nthe wagon right up the hill. You see the rawhide was dryin\u2019 out. That\u2019s\nthe way it does.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s what it does, all right,\u201d said Red. \u201cOnce I knowed a\nclod-hopper that made his self a rawhide hat. It worked fine till one\nday he got caught out in the rain. Then the sun come out, and that hat\ndrawed up so he couldn\u2019t git it off. And it was drawin\u2019 up and mashin\u2019\nhis head somethin\u2019 terrible. Lucky for him, it wasn\u2019t very far to a\ntank, and he got off and stood on his head in the water a few minutes\nand it come right off.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, \u201cthat\u2019s what the rawhide log-chain done. It dried\nout, and that wagon come right up the hill; and when it got up to where\nthe Ole Man and the Ole Woman was, the Ole Man got his choppin\u2019 axe\nand begun cuttin\u2019 down trees to make him a cabin. And that\u2019s where he\nsettled.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid Pecos Bill grow up there in East Texas?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cHe left when he was a mere lad,\u201d said Joe. \u201cBut he lived there a\nlittle while. The Ole Man got along fine till his corn give out,\nbecause there was plenty of game. But he jest couldn\u2019t do without his\ncorn-pone and his corn whiskey. So he cleared a little patch and put it\nin corn.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd worked it without his steers?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d said Joe. \u201cHe made him a light Georgie-stock out of wood,\nand the Ole Woman and one of the bigger kids could pull it fine. He\nmade some harness out of the hide of Old Spot, and he\u2019d hitch \u2019em and\nplough all day.\n\n\u201cThey used to all go out in the field and leave Pecos Bill in the cabin\nby his self. One day when Bill was about three years old, the Ole Man\nwas ploughin\u2019 and jest as he turned the Ole Woman and the kid he had\nhitched up with her around to start a new row, the Ole Woman begun\nyellin\u2019 and tryin\u2019 to get out of the harness.\n\n\u201c\u2018What\u2019s eatin\u2019 on you, Ole Woman?\u2019 says the Ole Man. \u2018I never seen you\ndo like this before. Must have a tick in your ear.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe Ole Woman yelled that she seen a panther go in the cabin where\nBill was.\n\n\u201cThe Ole Man told her not to git excited. \u2018It\u2019s a half hour by sun till\ndinner time yet,\u2019 he says, \u2018and that dang panther needn\u2019t expect no\nhelp from me nohow. The fool critter ought to of had more sense than to\ngo in there. He\u2019ll jest have to make out the best way he can.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo they ploughed on till dinner time, and when they come back to the\ncabin, there was Pecos Bill a-chewin\u2019 on a piece of raw panther flank.\n\n\u201cThey lived there another year or two before the Ole Man taken a notion\nto leave.\u201d\n\n\u201cI reckon you know how he come to git the idear in his head, don\u2019t you,\nJoe?\u201d said Red.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll bite,\u201d said Joe. \u201cGo ahead.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, this ain\u2019t no sell,\u201d said Red. \u201cI\u2019ve heard Windy Williams tell it\na hundred times.\n\n\u201cOne time the Ole Man had the Ole Woman and one of the big kids hitched\nup to the plough in his customary and habitual manner, jist as Joe\nhas been tellin\u2019 about, and all at once here comes a piece of paper\nblowin\u2019 across the field. The Ole Woman shied a little bit off to one\nside; then the kid got to prancin\u2019, and then they tore loose and went\nlickity-split, rearin\u2019 and tearin\u2019 across that corn patch, draggin\u2019\nthe Ole Man with \u2019em. The Ole Man stumped his toe on a root, and then\nthey got loose from him and tore up the Georgie-stock. After while they\nquieted down, and the Ole Man got up and fetched \u2019em in. Then he went\nout and picked up the piece of paper where it was hung on a stump. He\nseen it was an old newspaper. That set him to wonderin\u2019.\n\n\u201cThe next mornin\u2019 he got his rifle and begun lookin\u2019 around. About five\nmiles from his place he found some wagon tracks, and he follered the\ntracks till he come to a new cabin about fifty miles up the creek. Then\nhe come home and told the Ole Woman and the kids to git ready to leave.\nHe calkilated the country was gittin\u2019 too thickly settled for him.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did he get away without a team?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOh, that was easy,\u201d said Red. \u201cHe sent Pecos Bill out to ketch a\ncouple of mustangs, and in about an hour the lad run \u2019em down. The Ole\nMan fixed up the harness he\u2019d been usin\u2019 to plough with, and loaded in\nhis stuff and his wife and kids, and pulled out.\n\n\u201cThey kept goin\u2019 west till finally they come to the Pecos River, which\nthe Ole Man said he\u2019d ford or bust. He got across all right, but as he\nwas drivin\u2019 up the bank on the west side, the end-gate come out of the\nwagon, and Pecos Bill fell out. The Ole Man and the Ole Woman never\nmissed him till they got about thirty miles further on; then they said\nit wasn\u2019t worth while turnin\u2019 back. They said they guessed the chap\ncould take kere of his self, and if he couldn\u2019t he wasn\u2019t worth turnin\u2019\nback for nohow. So that\u2019s how Pecos Bill come to be called Pecos Bill.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat became of him?\u201d asked Lanky. \u201cWhat happened to him then?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat happened to him then?\u201d said Red. \u201cThat would take a long time to\ntell.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll tell you about that some other time, Lanky,\u201d said Joe.\n\n\n\n\n                        ADVENTURES OF PECOS BILL\n\n\n\u201cHow old was Pecos Bill when he was lost on the Pecos River?\u201d Lanky\nasked Joe on the next night when supper was finished and the four were\nsitting around the fire smoking.\n\n\u201cI guess he must of been about four year old,\u201d said Joe. \u201cSome says\nhe was jest a year old, but that can\u2019t be right. The Ole Man made two\nor three crops down on the Trinity before the country got so thickly\nsettled that he had to leave.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat became of the family?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cThat would be hard to answer,\u201d said Joe; \u201chard to answer. I don\u2019t\nsuppose there\u2019s a soul that knows for certain. There\u2019s been tales about\n\u2019em bein\u2019 et up by wild beasts, but that ain\u2019t likely; and there\u2019s been\ntales about \u2019em bein\u2019 killed by the Indians, but that ain\u2019t likely\nneither. Why, them Red-Skins would run like scered jack-rabbits when\nthey seen the Ole Man comin\u2019, or the Ole Woman either. Then there\u2019s\ntales about \u2019em dyin\u2019 for water in the desert, which may be so; but\nmore than likely they settled somewheres and lived a happy and peaceful\nlife.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe chances are,\u201d said Red, \u201cthat they settled in the Lost Canyon, and\ntheir offspring may be livin\u2019 there yet for all anybody knows.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere is the Lost Canyon?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s jist what nobody don\u2019t know,\u201d said Red; \u201cbut it\u2019s out in the\nBig Bend Country somewheres, and it opens into the R\u00edo Grande. It gits\nwide, and there\u2019s springs in it, and buffalo a-grazin\u2019 on the grass,\nand it\u2019s a fine country.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know about it?\u201d asked Lanky. \u201cHave you ever been there?\u201d\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Red, \u201cbut people has. But you never can find it when you\u2019re\nlookin\u2019 for it. Them that finds it, finds it accidentally, and then\nthey can\u2019t go back. That\u2019s jist the place that would of suited Pecos\nBill\u2019s Ole Man, and the chances are that\u2019s where he stopped. Some day\nI\u2019m goin\u2019 to happen on that canyon myself, and if I do, I\u2019ll jist stake\nme out a ranch; that is unless it\u2019s inhabited by Pecos Bill\u2019s race. If\nit is, I reckon I\u2019ll let \u2019em have it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what became of Pecos Bill?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d said Joe, \u201che jest growed up with the country. There wasn\u2019t\nnothin\u2019 else he could do. He got to runnin\u2019 with a bunch of coyotes and\ntook up with \u2019em. He learned their language and took up all their bad\nhabits. He could set on the ground and howl with the best of \u2019em, and\nrun down a jack-rabbit jest as quick, too. He used to run ahead of the\npack and pull down a forty-eight point buck and bite a hole in his neck\nbefore the rest of the coyotes got there. But he always divided with\nthe pack, and that\u2019s probably the reason they throwed off on him like\nthey did.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid he ever teach anybody else the coyote language?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cJest one old prospector that befriended him once. That was all. You\nsee the old man couldn\u2019t find no gold and he went to trappin\u2019, and he\nused the language that Bill had taught him to call up the coyotes and\ngit \u2019em in his traps. Bill said it was a dirty trick, and he wouldn\u2019t\nteach nobody else how to speak coyote. Bill would of killed the old\nprospector if it hadn\u2019t of been that the old man done him a favor once.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did he do?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy, it was him that found Bill and brought him back to civilization\nand liquor, which Bill had jest about forgot the taste of.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow old was Bill at that time?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOh, I guess he was about ten years old,\u201d said Joe. \u201cOne day this old\nprospector comes along and he hears the most terrible racket anybody\never heard of--rocks a-rollin\u2019 down the canyon, brush a-poppin\u2019, and\nthe awfullest howlin\u2019 and squallin\u2019 you could imagine; and he looks\nup the canyon and sees what he first thinks is a cloud comin\u2019 up, but\npurty soon he discovers it\u2019s fur a-flyin\u2019.\n\n\u201cWell, he decides to walk up the canyon a piece and investigate, and\npurty soon he comes on Pecos Bill, who has a big grizzly bear under\neach arm jest mortally squeezin\u2019 the stuffin\u2019 out of \u2019em. And while the\nold prospector stands there a-watchin\u2019, Bill tears off a hind leg and\nbegins eatin\u2019 on it.\n\n\u201c\u2018A game scrap, son,\u2019 says the old prospector, \u2018and who be ye?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Me?\u2019 says Bill. \u2018I\u2019m a varmit.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw, ye ain\u2019t a varmit,\u2019 says the old prospector; \u2018you\u2019re a human.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw,\u2019 says Bill, \u2018I ain\u2019t no human; I\u2019m a varmit.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018How come?\u2019 says the prospector.\n\n\u201c\u2018Don\u2019t I go naked?\u2019 says Bill.\n\n\u201c\u2018Shore ye do,\u2019 says the old Prospector. \u2018Shore ye\u2019re naked. So is the\nIndians, and them critters is part human, anyway. That don\u2019t spell\nnothin\u2019.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Don\u2019t I have fleas?\u2019 says Bill.\n\n\u201c\u2018Shore ye do,\u2019 says the old prospector, \u2018but all Texians has fleas.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Don\u2019t I howl?\u2019 says Bill.\n\n\u201c\u2018Yeah, ye howl all right,\u2019 says the old prospector, \u2018but nearly all\nTexians is howlin\u2019 most of the time. That don\u2019t spell nothin\u2019 neither.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, jest the same I\u2019m a coyote,\u2019 says Bill.\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw, ye ain\u2019t a coyote,\u2019 says the old prospector. \u2018A coyote\u2019s got a\ntail, ain\u2019t he?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yeah,\u2019 says Bill, \u2018a coyote\u2019s got a tail.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But you ain\u2019t got no tail,\u2019 says the old prospector. \u2018Jest feel and\nsee if you have.\u2019\n\n\u201cBill felt and shore nuff, he didn\u2019t have no tail.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, I\u2019ll be danged,\u2019 he says. \u2018I never did notice that before. I\nguess I ain\u2019t a coyote, after all. Show me them humans, and if I like\ntheir looks, maybe I\u2019ll throw in with \u2019em.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, he showed Bill the way to an outfit, and it wasn\u2019t long till he\nwas the most famous and noted man in the whole cow country.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was him,\u201d said Hank, \u201cthat invented ropin\u2019. He had a rope that\nreached from the R\u00edo Grande to the Big Bow, and he shore did swing a\nmean loop. He used to amuse his self by throwin\u2019 a little _Julian_[2]\nup in the sky and fetchin\u2019 down the buzzards and eagles that flew\nover. He roped everything he ever seen: bears and wolves and panthers,\nelk and buffalo. The first time he seen a train, he thought it was some\nkind of varmit, and damn me if he didn\u2019t sling a loop over it and dang\nnear wreck the thing.\n\n\u201cOne time his ropin\u2019 shore did come in handy, for he saved the life of\na very dear friend.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow was that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, Bill had a hoss that he thought the world of, and he had a good\nreason to, too, for he had raised him from a colt, feedin\u2019 him on a\nspecial diet of nitroglycerin and barbed wire, which made him very\ntough and also very ornery when anybody tried to handle him but Bill.\nThe hoss thought the world of Bill, but when anybody else come around,\nit was all off. He had more ways of pitchin\u2019 than Carter had oats. Lots\nof men tried to ride him, but only one man besides Bill ever mounted\nthat hoss and lived. That\u2019s the reason Bill named him Widow-Maker.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho was that man?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cThat was Bill\u2019s friend that I was goin\u2019 to tell you about Bill savin\u2019\nhis life,\u201d said Hank. \u201cYou see this feller gits his heart set on ridin\u2019\nWidow-Maker. Bill tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn\u2019t listen.\nHe said he could ride anything that had hair. It had been his ambition\nfrom youth, he said, to find a critter that could make him pull\nleather. So Bill, seein\u2019 the pore feller\u2019s heart was about to break,\nfinally told him to go ahead.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_A-settin\u2019 on that tornado and a-spurrin\u2019 it in the\nwithers._\u201d]\n\n\u201cHe gits on Widow-Maker, and that hoss begins to go through his\ngaits, doin\u2019 the end-to-end, the sunfish, and the back-throw; and about\nthat time the rider goes up in the sky. Bill watches him through a\nspyglass and sees him land on Pike\u2019s Peak. No doubt he would of starved\nto death up there, but Bill roped him by the neck and drug him down,\nthus savin\u2019 his life.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Red, \u201cWidow-Maker was jist the sort of hoss that suited\nBill exactly. For one thing, it saved him a lot of shootin\u2019, because\nhe didn\u2019t have no trouble keepin\u2019 other people off his mount; and as\nfor Bill, he could ride anything that had hair and some things that\ndidn\u2019t have. Once, jist for fun, he throwed a surcingle on a streak of\nlightin\u2019 and rode it over Pike\u2019s Peak.\n\n\u201cAnother time he bet a Stetson hat he could ride a cyclone. He went\nup on the Kansas line and simply eared that tornado down and got on\nit. Down he come across Oklahoma and the Panhandle a-settin\u2019 on that\ntornado, a-curlin\u2019 his mustache and a-spurrin\u2019 it in the withers.\nSeein\u2019 it couldn\u2019t throw him, it jist naturally rained out from under\nhim, and that\u2019s the way Bill got the only spill he ever had.\n\n\u201cYeah,\u201d continued Red, \u201cI reckon Bill was mighty hard to throw. A smart\nlad he was, and a playful sort of feller, too. In his spare time he\nused to amuse his self puttin\u2019 thorns on things--bushes and cactuses\nand the like, and he even stuck horns on the toads so they\u2019d match up\nwith the rest of the country.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see he\u2019s been at work in this country,\u201d said Lanky. \u201cDid he live all\nhis life in Texas?\u201d\n\n\u201cNaw, he didn\u2019t,\u201d said Joe. \u201cBill was a good deal like his old man.\nWhen he had killed all the Indians and bad men, and the country got\nall peaceful and quiet, he jest couldn\u2019t stand it any longer, and he\nsaddled up his hoss and started west. Out on the New Mexico line he met\nan old trapper, and they got to talkin\u2019, and Bill told him why he was\nleavin\u2019, and said if the old man knowed where there was a tough outfit,\nhe\u2019d be much obliged if he would tell him how to git to it.\n\n\u201c\u2018Ride up the draw about two hundred miles,\u2019 says the old trapper, \u2018and\nyou\u2019ll find a bunch of guys so tough that they bite nails in two jest\nfor the fun of it.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo Bill rides on in a hurry, gittin\u2019 somewhat reckless on account of\nwantin\u2019 to git to that outfit and git a look at the bad _hombres_ that\nthe old man has told him about. The first thing Bill knowed, his hoss\nstumps his toe on a mountain and breaks his fool neck rollin\u2019 down the\nside, and so Bill finds his self afoot.\n\n\u201cHe takes off his saddle and goes walkin\u2019 on, packin\u2019 it, till all at\nonce he comes to a big rattlesnake. He was twelve feet long and had\nfangs like the tushes of a _javelina_; and he rears up and sings at\nBill and sticks out his tongue like he was lookin\u2019 for a scrap. There\nwasn\u2019t nothin\u2019 that Bill wouldn\u2019t fight, and he always fought fair; and\njest to be shore that rattlesnake had a fair show and couldn\u2019t claim he\ntook advantage of him, Bill let him have three bites before he begun.\nThen he jest naturally lit into that reptile and mortally flailed the\nstuffin\u2019 out of him. Bill was always quick to forgive, though, and let\nby-gones be by-gones, and when the snake give up, Bill took him up and\ncurled him around his neck, and picked up his saddle and outfit and\nwent on his way.\n\n\u201cAs he was goin\u2019 along through a canyon, all at once a big mountain\nlion jumped off of a cliff and spraddled out all over Bill. Bill never\ngot excited. He jest took his time and laid down his saddle and his\nsnake, and then he turned loose on that cougar. Well, sir, the hair\nflew so it rose up like a cloud and the jack-rabbits and road-runners\nthought it was sundown. It wasn\u2019t long till that cougar had jest all he\ncould stand, and he begun to lick Bill\u2019s hand and cry like a kitten.\n\n\u201cWell, Bill jest ears him down and slips his bridle on his head, throws\non the saddle and cinches her tight, and mounts the beast. Well, that\ncat jest tears out across the mountains and canyons with Bill on his\nback a-spurrin\u2019 him in the shoulders and quirtin\u2019 him down the flank\nwith the rattlesnake.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s the way Bill rode into the camp of the outfit the old\ntrapper had told him about. When he gits there, he reaches out and\ncheeks down the cougar and sets him on his haunches and gits down and\nlooks at his saddle.\n\n\u201cThere was them tough _hombres_ a-settin\u2019 around the fire playin\u2019\n_monte_. There was a pot of coffee and a bucket of beans a-boilin\u2019\non the fire, and as Bill hadn\u2019t had nothin\u2019 to eat for several days,\nhe was hungry; so he stuck his hand down in the bucket and grabbed a\nhandful of beans and crammed \u2019em into his mouth. Then he grabbed the\ncoffee pot and washed \u2019em down, and wiped his mouth on a prickly-pear.\nThen he turned to the men and said, \u2018Who in the hell is boss around\nhere, anyway?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I was,\u2019 says a big stout feller about seven feet tall, \u2018but you are\nnow, stranger.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd that was the beginning of Bill\u2019s outfit.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it was only the beginnin\u2019s,\u201d said Red; \u201cfor it wasn\u2019t long\nafter that that he staked out New Mexico and fenced Arizona for a\ncalf-pasture. He built a big ranch-house and had a big yard around\nit. It was so far from the yard gate to the front door, that he used\nto keep a string of saddle hosses at stations along the way, for the\nconvenience of visitors. Bill always was a hospitable sort of chap, and\nwhen company come, he always tried to persuade them to stay as long\nas he could git \u2019em to. Deputy sheriffs and brand inspectors he never\nwould let leave a-tall.\n\n\u201cOne time his outfit was so big that he would have his cooks jist dam\nup a draw to mix the biscuit dough in. They would dump in the flour and\nthe salt and the bakin\u2019-powder and mix it up with teams and fresnoes.\nYou can still see places where the dough was left in the bottom of\nthe draw when they moved on. Alkali lakes they call \u2019em. That\u2019s the\nbakin\u2019-powder that stayed in the ground.\n\n\u201cOne time when there was a big drought and water got scerce on Bill\u2019s\nrange, he lit in and dug the R\u00edo Grande and ditched water from the Gulf\nof Mexico. Old man Windy Williams was water boy on the job, and he said\nBill shore drove his men hard for a few days till they got through, and\nit kept him busy carryin\u2019 water.\u201d\n\n\u201cI guess it took about all of Bill\u2019s time to manage a ranch like that,\u201d\nsaid Lanky.\n\n\u201cNot all, not all,\u201d said Joe. \u201cThat was his main vocation and callin\u2019,\nbut he found time for a good many other things. He was always goin\u2019 in\nfor somethin\u2019 else when the cattle business got slack.\n\n\u201cWhen the S. P. come through, he got a contract furnishin\u2019 \u2019em wood.\nBill went down into Mexico and rounded up a bunch of greasers and put\n\u2019em to cuttin\u2019 wood. He made a contract with \u2019em that they was to git\nhalf the wood they cut. When the time was up, they all had big stacks\nof cordwood, Mex\u2019can cords, you understand, that they don\u2019t know what\nto do with. So Bill talked it over with \u2019em and finally agreed to take\nit off their hands without chargin\u2019 \u2019em a cent. Bill always was liberal.\n\n\u201cHe done some of the gradin\u2019 on the S. P. too. This time he went out\nand rounded up ten thousand badgers and put \u2019em to diggin\u2019. He said\nthey was better laborers than Chinks, because he could learn \u2019em how\nto work sooner. Bill had some trouble, however, gittin\u2019 \u2019em to go in a\nstraight line, and that\u2019s why the S. P. is so crooked in places.\n\n\u201cHe also got a contract fencin\u2019 the right-of-way. The first thing that\nhe done was to go out on the line of Texas and New Mexico and buy up\nall the dry holes old Bob Sanford had made out there tryin\u2019 to git\nwater. He pulled \u2019em up and sawed \u2019em up into two-foot lengths for\npost-holes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve heard that Paul Bunyan did that with dry oil-wells,\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cPaul Bunyan might of for all I know,\u201d said Joe. \u201cBut if he did, he\nlearned the trick from Pecos Bill, for this was before oil had been\ninvented.\n\n\u201cHowever, it cost so much to freight the holes down that Bill give up\nthe plan long before he had used up all of Bob Sanford\u2019s wells, and\nfound a cheaper and better way of makin\u2019 post-holes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was his new method?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWhy, he jest went out and rounded up a big bunch of prairie-dogs, and\nturned \u2019em loose where he wanted the fence, and of course every critter\nof \u2019em begun diggin\u2019 a hole, for it\u2019s jest a prairie-dog\u2019s nature to\ndig holes. As soon as a prairie-dog would git down about two feet,\nBill would yank him out and stick a post in the hole. Then the fool\nprairie-dog would go start another one, and Bill would git it. Bill\nsaid he found the prairie-dog labor very satisfactory. The only trouble\nwas that sometimes durin\u2019 off hours, the badgers that he had gradin\u2019\nwould make a raid on the prairie-dogs, and Bill would have to git up\nand drive \u2019em back to their own camp.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid Bill have any other occupations?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, \u201che used to fight Indians jest for recreation, but he\nnever did make a business of it like some did, huntin\u2019 \u2019em for a dollar\na scalp. In fact Bill was not bloodthirsty and cruel, and he never\nscalped an Indian in his life. He\u2019d jest skin \u2019em and tan their hides.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat reminds me,\u201d said Hank, \u201cof another business he used to carry\non as a sort of side-line, and that was huntin\u2019 buffalo. You see, it\nwas the hides that was valuable, and Bill thought it was too much of\na waste to kill a buffalo jest for the hide; so he\u2019d jest hold the\ncritters and skin \u2019em alive and then turn \u2019em aloose to grow a new\nhide. A profitable business he built up, too, but he jest made one\nmistake.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOne spring he skinned too early, and a norther come up, and all the\nbuffalo took cold and died. Mighty few of \u2019em left after that.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid Bill ever get married?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cOh, yes,\u201d said Joe. \u201cHe married lots of women in his day, but he never\nhad the real tender affection for any of the rest of \u2019em that he had\nfor his first wife, Slue-Foot Sue.\n\n\u201cBill savvied courtin\u2019 the ladies all right; yet he never took much\nstock in petticoats till he met Slue-Foot Sue; but when he saw that gal\ncome ridin\u2019 down the R\u00edo Grande on a catfish, it jest got next to him,\nand he married her right off.\n\n\u201cI say right off--but she made him wait a few days till she could send\nto San Antonio for a suitable and proper outfit, the principal garment\nbein\u2019 a big steel wire bustle, like all the women wore when they\ndressed up in them days.\n\n\u201cWell, everything would have gone off fine, but on the very day of the\nweddin\u2019 Sue took a fool notion into her head that she jest had to ride\nWidow-Maker. For a long time Bill wouldn\u2019t hear to it, but finally\nshe begun to cry, and said Bill didn\u2019t love her any more. Bill jest\ncouldn\u2019t stand to see her cry; so he told her to go ahead but to be\nkeerful.\n\n[Illustration: \u201c_That gal come ridin\u2019 down the R\u00edo Grande on a\ncatfish._\u201d]\n\n\u201cWell, she got on that hoss, and he give about two jumps, and she left\nthe saddle. He throwed her so high that she had to duck as she went up\nto keep from bumpin\u2019 her head on the moon. Then she come down, landin\u2019\nright on that steel bustle, and that made her bounce up jest as high,\nnearly, as she had went before. Well, she jest kept on bouncin\u2019 like\nthat for ten days and nights, and finally Bill had to shoot her to keep\nher from starvin\u2019 to death. It nearly broke his heart. That was the\nonly time Bill had ever been known to shed tears, and he was so tore up\nthat he wouldn\u2019t have nothin\u2019 to do with a woman for two weeks.\u201d\n\n\n[2] A type of loop. Pronounced _hooli\u00e1n_.\n\n\n\n\n                        THE EXODUS OF PECOS BILL\n\n\nLanky had been sent for, and this was his last night in camp. His face\nwas tanned; he had gained in weight; he had earned money in his own\nright. He felt that he was now a man.\n\nHe and his cronies sat around the fire in silence. Joe and the boys\nwould miss the kid, and he hated to leave. This silence wouldn\u2019t do.\n\n\u201cWhat became of Pecos Bill?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cThat would be hard to say,\u201d said Joe, \u201chard to say. Everybody knows\nhe\u2019s gone, jest like the open range and the longhorn steer; but jest\nhow and where he passed in his checks, I don\u2019t suppose anybody will\never find out for certain. A lot of the fellers that knowed him are\ndead, and a lot of \u2019em has bad memories--a lot of the old-timers has\nbad memories--and some of \u2019em are sech damn liars that you can\u2019t go by\nwhat they say.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve seen Pecos Bill, haven\u2019t you, Joe?\u201d said Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, yes, that is I seen him when I was a young buck. But I never\nseen him die, and I never could find out jest how he was took off. I\u2019ve\nseen some mighty hot arguments on the subject, and I\u2019ve knowed one or\ntwo fellers to die with their boots on after gittin\u2019 in a quarrel in\njest that way.\u201d\n\n\u201cI heard one account a few years ago,\u201d said Red, \u201cthat may be right.\nThere was a feller in Amarillo named Gabriel Asbury Jackson. He\u2019d\nworked his self out of a job in Kansas and had come to Texas to buck\nthe cigarette evil. One time he cornered a bunch of us that was too\ndrunk to make a git-away and begun talkin\u2019 to us about smokin\u2019.\n\n\u201c\u2018Young men,\u2019 he says, \u2018beware of cigarettes. You think you\u2019re smart\nto smoke a sack of Bull Durham every day, do you? Well, look at Pecos\nBill. A stalwart young man he was, tough as nails, a fine specimen. But\nhe got to foolin\u2019 with cigarettes. What did they do for him?\u2019 he says.\n\u2018Why, nothin\u2019 at first. But did he quit? No!\u2019 he says. \u2018He puffed away\nfor ninety years, but they finally got him. And they\u2019ll git you, every\nmother\u2019s son of you, if you don\u2019t leave \u2019em alone.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThat ain\u2019t so,\u201d said Joe. \u201cThat man was jest a liar. Cigarettes never\nkilled Pecos Bill. He was, however, a great smoker, but he never\nsmoked Bull Durham. He made him up a mixture of his own, the principal\ningredients bein\u2019 Kentucky home-spun, sulphur, and gun-powder. Why, he\nwould have thought he was a sissy if he\u2019d smoked Bull Durham.\n\n\u201cWhen the matches was scerce Bill used to ride out into a thunderstorm\nand light his cigarette with a streak of lightnin\u2019, and that\u2019s no doubt\nwhat\u2019s back of a tale you hear every once in a while about him bein\u2019\nstruck and kilt. But nobody that knows how Bill throwed a surcingle\nover a streak of lightnin\u2019 and rode it over Pike\u2019s Peak will ever\nbelieve that story.\u201d\n\n\u201cI heard it was liquor that killed pore Bill,\u201d said Hank.\n\n\u201cMust of been boot-leg,\u201d said Red.\n\n\u201cNaw,\u201d said Hank. \u201cYou see, Bill bein\u2019 brought up as he was from tender\nyouth on whiskey and onions, was still a young man when whiskey lost\nits kick for him. He got to puttin\u2019 nitroglycerin in his drinks. That\nworked all right for a while, but soon he had to go to wolf-bait; and\nwhen that got so it didn\u2019t work, he went to fish-hooks. Bill used to\nsay, rather sorrowful-like, that that was the only way he could git an\nidear from his booze. But after about fifty years the fish-hooks rusted\nout his interior parts and brought pore Bill to an early grave.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know who told you that windy,\u201d said Joe. \u201cIt might of been\nyour own daddy. But it ain\u2019t so. It\u2019s jest another damn lie concocted\nby them damn prohibition men.\u201d\n\n\u201cI heard another tale,\u201d said Red, \u201cwhich may be right for all I know. I\nheard that Bill went to Fort Worth one time, and there he seen a Boston\nman who had jist come to Texas with a mail-order cowboy outfit on; and\nwhen Bill seen him, he jist naturally laid down and laughed his self to\ndeath.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat may be so,\u201d said Joe, \u201cbut I doubt it. I heard one tale about\nthe death of Pecos Bill that I believe is the real correct and true\naccount.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what was that?\u201d asked Lanky.\n\n\u201cWell, Bill happened to drift into Cheyenne jest as the first rodeo was\nbein\u2019 put on. Bein\u2019 a bit curious to know what it was all about, he\nwent out to the grounds to look the thing over. When he seen the ropers\nand the riders, he begun to weep; the first tears he\u2019d shed since the\ndeath of Slue-Foot Sue. Well, finally when a country lawyer jest three\nyears out of Mississippi got up to make a speech and referred to the\nmen on horseback as cowboys, Bill turned white and begun to tremble.\nAnd then when the country lawyer went on to talk about \u2018keepin\u2019\ninviolate the sacred traditions of the Old West,\u2019 Bill jest went out\nand crawled in a prairie-dog hole and died of solemncholy.\u201d\n\nLanky looked at Red and Hank. They had not missed the point, but they\nchose to ignore it.\n\nJoe talked on. \u201cAfter several years,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen all Bill\u2019s\nwould-be rivals was sure he was dead, they all begun to try to ruin his\nreputation and defame his character. They said he was a hot-headed,\noverbearin\u2019 sort of feller. They was too scered to use the word, even\nafter Bill died, but what they meant was that he was a _killer_.\n\n\u201cNow, Pecos Bill did kill lots of men. He never kept no tally his\nself, and I don\u2019t suppose nobody will ever know jest how many he took\noff. Of course I\u2019m not referrin\u2019 to Mex\u2019cans and Indians. Bill didn\u2019t\ncount them. But Bill wasn\u2019t a bad man, and he hardly ever killed a man\nwithout just cause.\n\n\u201cFor instance, there was Big Ike that he shot for snorin\u2019, that Bill\u2019s\nenemies talked up so much. But them that was doin\u2019 the talkin\u2019 would\nforgit to mention that Bill had been standin\u2019 guard over Mexico steers\nevery night for six weeks and was gittin\u2019 a bit sleepy.\n\n\u201cThen there was Ris Risbone. Ris was one of these practical jokers, and\nhe ramrodded an outfit that fell in behind Bill\u2019s on the trail. Ris had\na dozen or so jokes, and when he pulled one, he slapped his knees and\nlaughed and laughed whether anybody else was a-laughin\u2019 or not. One day\nRis rode up to Bill\u2019s chuck-wagon when there wasn\u2019t nobody there but\nthe cook, and he was asleep in the shade of the wagon with his head\nbetween the wheels. Ris slipped up and grabbed the trace chains and\nbegun rattlin\u2019 \u2019em and yellin\u2019 \u2018Whoa! Whoa!\u2019 The pore spick woke up\nthinkin\u2019 that the team was runnin\u2019 away, and that he was about to git\nhis pass to Saint Peter. He jumped up and bumped his head on the wagon;\nthen he wakes up and looks around, and there stands Ris slappin\u2019 his\nknees and laughin\u2019. Jest then Bill rides up, but he never said nothin\u2019.\n\n\u201cWhen the outfits got to Abilene, Bill was in the White Elephant with\nsome of his men, fixin\u2019 to take a drink. Jest as Bill was about to drop\nhis fish-hooks in his glass, Ris poked his head in at the winder and\nyelled, \u2018Fire! Fire!\u2019--and Bill did.\n\n\u201cIn one killin\u2019, however, Bill acted a bit hasty, as he admitted his\nself. One day he called Three-Fingered Ed out of the saloon, sayin\u2019\nhe\u2019d like to speak with him in private. Bill led Ed out into a back\nalley, and there they stopped.\n\n\u201c\u2018Say, Ed,\u2019 he says, lookin\u2019 him right in the eye, \u2018didn\u2019t you say that\nMike said I was a hot-headed, overbearin\u2019 sort of feller?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Naw,\u2019 says Ed, \u2018You mistook me. He never said that.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, doggone,\u2019 says Bill, \u2018ain\u2019t that too bad. I\u2019ve gone and killed\nan innocent man.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, Lanky, maybe your pa\u2019ll let you come back next fall.\u201d\n\n\n                              THE END\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note\n\nThis book was written in a period when many words had not become\nstandardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling\nvariations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been\nleft unchanged unless indicated below.\n\nWords and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like\nthis_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the\nend of the chapter in which the anchor occurs. Obvious printing\nerrors, such as backwards, upside down, missing or partially printed\nletters and punctuation, were corrected.  Descriptors were added to\nillustrations without captions.\n\nThe following spelling corrections were made:\n\n  biggest and the [straighest] straightest\n  we [liked] lacked one man\n  we work the canyon [tomorow] tomorrow\n  I\u2019d jest [made] make him mad\n  the old [traper] trapper","title":"Tall tales from Texas","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":30719}