Sundown paused and called the attention of his horse to the last line.

He hesitated, harking back for his climax.  “Jing!” he exclaimed, “it’s the durndest thing to put a finish on a piece of po’try!  You get to goin’ and she goes fine.  Then you commence to feel that you’re comin’ to the end and nacherally you asks yourself what’s the end goin’ to be like.  Fust thing you’re stompin’ around in your head upsettin’ all that you writ tryin’ to rope somethin’ to put on the tail-end of the parade that’ll show up strong.  Kind o’ like ropin’ a steer.  No tellin’ where that pome is goin’ to land you.”

Sundown was more than pleased with himself.  He again recited the verse as he plodded along, fixing it in his memory for the future edification of his compatriots of the Concho.

“The best thing I ever writ!” he assured himself.  “Fust thing I know they’ll be puttin’ me in one of them doxologies for keeps.  ’Sundown Slim, The Poet of the Mesas!’ Sounds good to me.  Reckon that’s why I never seen a woman that I wanted to get married to.  Writin’ po’try kind of detracted me mind from love.  Guess I could love a woman if she wouldn’t laugh at me for bein’ so dog-goned lengthy.  She would have to be a small one, though, so as she’d be kind o’ scared o’ me bein’ so big.  Then mebby we could get along pretty good.  ’Course, I wouldn’t like her to be scared all the time, but jest kind o’ respectable-like to me.  Them’s the best kind.  Mebby I’ll ketch one some day.  Now there goes that Chance after a rabbit ag’in.  He’s a long piece off—­jest can hardly see him except somethin’ movin’.  Well, if he comes back as quick as he went, he’ll be here soon.”  And Sundown jogged along, spur-chains jingling a fairy tune to his oral soliloquies.

Aside from forgetting to have breakfast that morning, he had made a pretty fair beginning.  He was well on his way, had composed a roan-colored lyric of the ranges, discoursed on the subject of love, and had set his spirit free to meander in the realms of imagination.  Yet his spirit swept back to him with a rush of wings and a question.  Why not get married?  And “Gee!  Gosh!” he ejaculated, startled by the abruptness of the thought.  “Now I like hosses and dogs and folks, but livin’ with hosses and dogs ain’t like livin’ with folks.  If hosses and dogs take to you, they think you’re the whole thing.  But wimmen is different.  If they take to you—­why, they think they’re the whole thing jest because they landed you.  I dunno!  Jest bein’ good to folks ain’t everything, either.  But bein’ good to hosses and dogs is.  Funny.  I dunno, though.  You either got to understand ’em and be rough to ’em, or be good to ’em and then they understand you.  Guess they ain’t no regular guide-book on how to git along with wimmen.  Well, I never come West for me health.  I brung it with me, but I ain’t goin’ to take chances by fallin’ in love.  Writin’ po’try is wearin’ enough.”