pe was ill-founded, for later, when Dan took Whitey to the
bunk house, he found all the punchers who were there were reading
serious-looking books. Whitey supposed that "like master, like man,"
they must be taking after Dan Brayton. He did not know that some of
those cowboys couldn't read at all, and if he had looked close enough he
might have seen that some of those who could read were holding their
books upside down.

Whitey's stay at the T Up and Down turned out to be as dull as the
Congressional Record. There was an old-fashioned melodeon in the
living-room of the ranch house, and it was very much out of tune. One of
the punchers could play, and he played, and the others sang hymns, and
sang them very badly, and when they had finished the hymns, they started
on doleful songs like "The Cowboy's Lament," and "Bury Me On the Lone
Perare-e-e."

These seemed to be great favorites with the punchers, and Whitey
wondered at it. They were getting less popular with him every minute.
Afterwards he learned what may have made them please the men; that
almost all the songs sung on the ranges are written by the cowboys
themselves, and they may be dismal because of being composed during
lonely night rides.

One puncher called "Little" Thompson, who was high and narrow in
build--shaped something like a lath, with a face something like an
undertaker's--sang at length. First a doleful ditty that went like this:

"Oh! my name it is J.W. Wright, I came from Tennessee.
There was a killin' in th' mountains, th' sheriff got his, ye see.
I left my wife an' babies, them kids I loved so well,
An' I'll find a grave on th' lone prairee,
Oh! pardners, ain't it hell?"

After this had dragged out its weary length he got an encore, and
responded with this gem:

"We came up over th' long trail,
Three thousand cattle strong.
Ned Saunders needed a hair cut,
Fer his hair was too darned long.

"Oh, th' night was dark an' stormee,
An' the Injuns round did yell,
So we herded into a canyon,
An' th' sons-o'-guns come like hell.

"Ned lost his hair, he didn't care,
Fer he had lots t' spare,
Oh, te-tumity tum-tum,"--and so on.

There were at least a hundred verses of this last, each verse more
deadly dull than the one before, and Little was very conscientious; he
didn't slight any of them. Long before he was through, Whitey envied the
fate of Ned Saunders. But the evening was only mortal, it had to end,
and at