“Son, if I was to turn myse’f loose on, great an’ little, the divers incidents of the trail, it would consoome days in the relation.  I could tell of cactus flowers, blazin’ an’ brilliant as a eye of red fire ag’in the brown dusk of the deserts; or of mile-long fields of Spanish bayonet in bloom; or of some Mexican’s doby shinin’ like a rooby in the sunlight a day’s journey ahead, the same one onbroken mass from roof to ground of the peppers they calls chili, all reddenin’ in the hot glare of the day.

“Or, if you has a fancy for stirrin’ incident an’ lively scenes, thar’s a time when the rains has raised the old Canadian ontil that quicksand ford at Tascosa—­which has done eat a hundred teams if ever it swallows one!—­is torn up complete an’ the bottom of the river nothin’ save b’ilin’ sand with a shallow yere an’ a hole deep enough to drown a house scooped out jest beyond.  An’ how since I can’t pause a week or two for the river to run down an’ the ford to settle, I goes spraddlin’ an’ tumblin’ an’ swimmin’ across on Tom, my nigh wheeler, opens negotiations with the LIT ranch, an’ Bob Roberson, has his riders round-up the pasture, an’ comes chargin’ down to the ford with a bunch of one thousand ponies, all of ’em dancin’ an’ buckin’ an’ prancin’ like chil’en outen school.  Roberson an’ the LIT boys throws the thousand broncos across an’ across the ford for mighty likely it’s fifty times.  They’d flash ’em through—­the whole band together—­on the run; an’ then round ’em up on the opp’site bank, turn ’em an’ jam ’em through ag’in.  When they ceases, the bottom of the river is tramped an’ beat out as hard an’ as flat as a floor, an’ I hooks up an’ brings the waggons over like the ford—­bottomless quicksand a hour prior—­is one of these yere asphalt streets.

“Or I might relate about a cowboy tournament that’s held over in the flat green bottom of Parker’s arroya; an’ how Jack Coombs throws a rope an’ fastens at one hundred an’ four foot, while Waco Simpson rides at the herd of cattle one hundred foot away, ropes, throws an’ ties down a partic’lar steer, frees his lariat an’ is back with the jedges ag’in in forty-eight seconds.  Waco wins the prize, a Mexican saddle—­stamp-leather an’ solid gold she is—­worth four hundred dollars, by them onpreecedented alacrities.

“Or, I might impart about a Mexican fooneral where the hearse is a blanket with two poles along the aige, the same as one of these battle litters; of the awful songs the mournful Mexicans sings about departed; of the candles they burns an’ the dozens of baby white-pine crosses they sets up on little jim-crow stone-heaps along the trail to the tomb; meanwhiles, howlin’ dirges constant.

“Now I thinks of it I might bresh up the recollections of a mornin’ when I rolls over, blankets an’ all, onto something that feels as big as a boot-laig an’ plenty squirmy; an’ how I shows zeal a-gettin’ to my feet, knowin’ I’m reposin’ on a rattlesnake who’s bunked in ag’in my back all sociable to warm himse’f.  It’s worth any gent’s while to see how heated an’ indignant that serpent takes it because of me turnin’ out so early and so swift.