When a moment later his favourite decanter appeared in the hands of one of the bar-boys of the hostelry, who placed it on a little table at his elbow and withdrew, the necessity for “Tom” seemed to disappear, and recurring to Hardrobe, he went on.

“Hardrobe is a Injun—­a Osage buck an’ belongs to the war clan of his tribe.  He’s been eddicated East an’ can read in books, an’ pow-wows American mighty near as flooent as I does myse’f.  An’ on that last p’int I’ll take a chance that I ain’t tongue-tied neither.

“Which this yere is a long time ago.  Them is days when I’m young an’ lithe an’ strong.  I can heft a pony an’ I’m six foot two in my moccasins.  No, I ain’t so tall by three inches now; old age shortens a gent up a whole lot.

“My range is on the south bank of Red River—­over on the Texas side.  Across on the no’th is the Nation—­what map folks call the ’Injun Territory.’  In them epocks we experiences Injuns free an’ frequent, as our drives takes us across the Nation from south to no’th the widest way.  We works over the old Jones an’ Plummer trail, which thoroughfare I alloodes to once or twice before.  I drives cattle over it an’ I freights over it,—­me an’ my eight-mule team.  An’ I shorely knows where all the grass an’ wood an’ water is from the Red River to the Flint Hills.

“Speakin’ of the Jones an’ Plummer trail, I once hears a dance-hall girl who volunteers some songs over in a Tucson hurdygurdy, an’ that maiden sort o’ dims my sights some.  First, she gives us The Dying Ranger, the same bein’ enough of itse’f to start a sob or two; speshul when folks is, as Colonel Sterett says, ‘a leetle drinkin’.’  Then when the public clamours for more she sings something which begins: 

  “’Thar’s many a boy who once follows the herds,
    On the Jones an’ Plummer trail;
  Some dies of drink an’ some of lead,
  An’ some over kyards, an’ none in bed;
  But they’re dead game sports, so with naught but good words,
    We gives ’em “Farewell an’ hail."’

“Son, this sonnet brings down mem’ries; and they so stirs me I has to vamos that hurdygurdy to keep my emotions from stampedin’ into tears.  Shore, thar’s soft spots in me the same as in oilier gents; an’ that melody a-makin’ of references to the old Jones an’ Plummer days comes mighty clost to meltin’ everything about me but my guns an’ spurs.

“This yere cattle business ain’t what it used to be; no more is cow-punchers.  Things is gettin’ effete.  These day it’s a case of chutes an’ brandin’ pens an’ wire fences an’ ten-mile pastures, an’ thar’s so little ropin’ that a boy don’t have practice enough to know how to catch his pony.