ke, his broncho cows are not broke,
his wife is not broke, and the old cuss himself is not broke.'

"After enduring all the torment and petty aggravation that a man could
stand for three months, I left and went to work at the White Oak Ranch.
The boss there set me to grubbing out oaks, and I can assure you it was
a relief after driving those mules.

"The third night I was at this place, I was the last to join the men at
the barn, and when I got there I found the teamsters, George and Harry,
making the air blue with oaths. They were giving it to the boss because
he would not get new harnesses, the old ones being mended all over with
wire and baling rope and the lines rotten. Harry's leaders had broken
their lines twice that day, it seemed, and he had nearly lost control of
them in consequence. 'The old fool keeps a-promising and a-promising to
get new harness,' said George, 'but he never gets it; and he hasn't got
a harness on his whole darn ranch that's worth a whoop in hell.' 'My old
plugs broke their harness five times to-day,' said Harry. 'Since I've
been here, the teams have done more damage and lost more than would pay
for a new harness ten times over.'

"When I had been there about a month, the hot weather began to come on,
and the feed to dry up, and I had to help clean the ditches out, ready
for irrigating. It was a big job, so many willows to grub out, and it
took much longer to finish it because we were so constantly called away
to drive out cattle and hogs that had broken into the orchard and grain
fields. You see, the feed was getting scarce, there was more stock than
there was feed for, and the fences were very shaky. The boss kept
talking about new fences, but he never had them built, he was satisfied
with patching the old ones.

"Well, we got the ditches cleaned out and commenced to irrigate, using
all the water we could get. I was one to help irrigate and look after
the ditches. The work would have been really pleasant if we could only
have kept the band of hogs out. They would get in after the green feed
and break the ditches, causing the water to wash the soil away. That
band of hogs began to torment me as much as the mules had done. They
were so hungry you could not keep them out. I didn't blame them, poor,
lank, starved creatures, for getting in and getting something to eat. I
would have done the same in their case.

"At last the boss thought he would shut them up in the barnyard and feed
them.