n a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eight
thousand men to work." He paused ponderously. "I'm an Arbitrator!"

"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook. "Who says
so?"

"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billings
is an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford no
conjecture.

"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' good
and strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, of
Chicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk and
disorderly' route.

"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,
but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes of
the cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that I
never got to see a newspaper. If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd
'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike ever
known, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse of
labour trouble.

"The whole river front was tied up. Nary a steamer had whistled
inside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men was
out. There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which last
is an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a prime
place for a cowman, on a quiet vacation--just homelike and natural.

"It was at this point that I enters, bustin' out of the smoke of the
Stock Yards, all sweet and beautiful, like the gentle heeroine in the
play as she walks through the curtains at the back of the stage.

"Now you know there's a heap of difference between the Stock Yards
and Chicago--it's just like coming from Arkansas over into the United
States.

"Well, soon as I sold the stock I hit for the lake front and began to
ground sluice the coal dust off of my palate.

"I was busy working my booze hydraulic when I see an arid appearin'
pilgrim 'longside lookin' thirsty as an alkali flat.

"'Get in,' says I, and the way he obeyed orders looked like he'd had
military training. I felt sort of drawed to him from the way he
handled his licker; took it straight and runnin' over; then sopped
his hands on the bar and smelled of his fingers. He seemed to just
soak it up both ways--reg'lar human blotter.

"'You lap it up like a man,' says I, 'like a cowman--full
growed--ever been West?'

"'Nope,' says he, 'born here.'

"'Well I'm a stranger,' says I, 'out absorbin' such beauties of
architecture and free lunch as offers