“Thought you was the agent.  I couldn’t see out,” apologized the tramp.

The cowboy laughed.  “He was scared to open her up, so I took a chanct, seein’ as I’m agent for the purvention of crulty to Hoboes.”

“Well, you got a fine chance to make a record this evening” said Sundown, estimating with experienced eye the possibilities of Antelope and its environs.  “I et at Albuquerque.”

“Ain’t a bad town to eat in,” commented the puncher, gazing at the sky.

“I never seen one that was,” the tramp offered, experimentally.

The cowboy grinned.  “Well, take a look at this pueblo, then.  You can see her all from here.  If the station door was open you could see clean through to New Mexico.  They got about as much use for a Bo in these parts as they have for raisin’ posies.  And this ain’t no garden.”

“Well, I’m raised.  I got me full growth,” said Sundown, straightening his elongated frame,—­he stood six-feet-four in whatever he could get to stand in,—­“and I raised meself.”

“Good thing you stopped when you did,” commented the puncher.  “What’s your line?”

“Me line?  Well, the Santa Fe, jest now.  Next comes cookin’.  I been cook in everything from a hotel to a gradin’-camp.  I cooked for high-collars and swalley-tails, and low-brows and jeans—­till it come time to go.  Incondescent to that I been poet select to the T.W.U.”

“Temperance?”

“Not exactly.  T.W.U. is Tie Walkers’ Union.  I lost me job account of a long-hair buttin’ in and ramblin’ round the country spielin’ high-toned stuff about ’Art for her own sake’—­and such.  Me pals selected him animus for poet, seein’ as how I just writ things nacheral; no high-fluted stuff like him.  Why, say, pardner, I believe in writin’ from the ground up, so folks can understand.  Why, this country is sufferin’ full of guys tryin’ to pull all the G strings out of a harp to onct—­when they ought to be practicin’ scales on a mouth-organ.  And it’s printed ag’in’ ’em in the magazines, right along.  I read lots of it.  But speakin’ of eats and thinkin’ of eats, did you ever listen to ’Them Saddest Words,’—­er—­one of me own competitions?”

“Not while I was awake.  But come on over to ‘The Last Chance’ and lubricate your works.  I don’t mind a little po’try on a full stummick.”

“Well, I’m willin’, pardner.”

The process of lubrication was brief; and “Have another?” queried the tramp.  “I ain’t all broke—­only I ain’t payin’ dividen’s, bein’ hard times.”

“Keep your two-bits,” said the puncher.  “This is on me.  You’re goin’ to furnish the chaser, Go to it and cinch up them there ‘saddest.’”

“Bein’ just two-bits this side of bein’ a socialist, I guess I’ll keep me change.  I ain’t a drinkin’ man—­regular, but I never was scared of eatin’.”

Sundown gazed about the dingy room.  Like most poets, he was not averse to an audience, and like most poets he was quite willing that such audience should help defray his incidental expenses—­indirectly, of course.  Prospects were pretty thin just then.  Two Mexican herders loafed at the other end of the bar.  They appeared anything but susceptible to the blandishments of Euterpe.  Sundown gazed at the ceiling, which was fly-specked and uninspiring,