no
breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky breakfast. What's a Kentucky
breakfast? Why, a Kentucky breakfast is a three-pound steak, a bottle
of whisky, and a setter dog. What's the dog for? Why, to eat the
steak, of course.

We come to an agreement. I was to get two-fifty a head commission. So
I started out. There wasn't many hosses in that country, and what
there was the owners hadn't much use for unless it was to work a whim.
I picked up about a hundred head quick enough, and reported to Dutchy.

"How about burros and mules?" I asks Dutchy.

"They goes," says he. "Mules same as hosses; burros four bits a head to
you."

At the end of a week I had a remuda of probably two hundred animals.
We kept them over the hills in some "parks," as these sots call meadows
in that country. I rode into town and told Dutchy.

"Got them all?" he asks.

"All but a cross-eyed buckskin that's mean, and the bay mare that Noah
bred to."

"Get them," says he.

"The bandits want too much," I explains.

"Get them anyway," says he.

I went away and got them. It was scand'lous; such prices.

When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement. The
whole passel of them was on that one street of their'n, talkin' sixteen
ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy, drunk as a soldier-just
plain foolish drunk.

"Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain't celebratin' gettin' that
bunch of buzzards, is he?"

But I found he wasn't that bad. When he caught sight of me, he fell on
me drivellin'.

"Look there!" he weeps, showin' me a letter.

I was the last to come in; so I kept that letter--here she is. I'll
read her.

Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I haven't
and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the trail. I've
made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm sending you
specimens. There's tons just like it, tons and tons. I got all the
claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more. I've writ to Johnny
and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this away. Make tracks. Come
in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and oblige.

Yours truly,
Henry Smith

Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in it.
His eyes was bulgin' until you could have hung your hat on them. That
O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips with his tongue and
swearin' soft.

"God bless the Iri