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When the frugal meal was over,
  When the pipes were filled and lit,
And the cowboy ceased his stories
  Weak in moral, rank in wit,
Billy plied him long with questions,
  Wording each with thought and care,
Lest his zeal for information
  Should reveal his mission there. 
“Tell me who you’ve seen go by here,
  Just within the last few days;
What they had for teams and outfits;
  How the country round here lays. 
Have you seen a prairie schooner—­
  Old style freighter—­pass this way? 
Both wheel hosses white-nosed sorrels,
  Lead team of a dun and gray?”

[Illustration:  “Loaded up their prairie schooner, And vamoosed the ranch ’fore light.”]

[Illustration:  “He was startled by a stranger’s Sudden presence and ‘Hello!’”]

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“I remember some such outfit,
  If I’ve got your idee right. 
Think they camped a mile below here
  Week ago last Thursday night. 
Pulled in sometime ’long ’bout sundown,
  Turned their stock in yonder draw,
But an oldish sort of fellow
  Was the only one I saw;
Rode a speckled chestnut pony
  With a white star in his face;
Asked some questions ’bout the country,
  ’Bout the proper crossing-place. 
Pulled out sometime long ’fore daylight. 
  Didn’t see them when they passed,
But from all the indications
  They was trav’ling pretty fast.

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“Crossed right here where we are settin’,
  Saw their trail that very day;
Struck plumb north, and by my reck’nin’
  Towards the north they’ll likely stay. 
North of here, by my experience,
  He’ll find grass that’s mighty fine. 
Chances are that he’ll keep goin’
  Till he strikes Nebraska’s line. 
It was just the next day after
  That my cattle scattered so;
Some strayed off ’way south to Jimson’s,
  One bunch in the bend below. 
That’s the day I met that feller
  (Eyes so black he couldn’t see)
Who kept pumpin’ me with questions
  Like you’ve just been askin’ me.

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“Asked about that prairie schooner,
  Said that they was friends of hisn,
Like to wore me plumb to frazzles
  With his everlasting quiz’n. 
Rode a piebald, knock-kneed broncho;
  Coat was battered, ripped, and torn;
He was yaller, long, and g’anted
  Like a steer with holler horn. 
An’ you oughter seen his breeches! 
  He must sure be shy on sense;
Why, they looked like he’d been riding
  On a bucking barb wire fence. 
You won’t meet him, ’cause I saw him
  Coming back across this way,
Going eastward where he come from;
  Took the back trail yesterday.

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