aper's been put up on that 'ere wall."

"You're a bill-sticker, I suppose?" sneeringly retorted the "young 'un."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the giant, with a cachinnation that resembled the
neighing of a horse. "A bill-sticker, eh! Wal; I likes that. An' I
likes yur grit, too, young feller, for all ye are so sassy. But ye
needn't git riled, an' I reckon ye won't, when I tell ye who I am."

"And who are you; pray?"

"Maybe ye mount a hearn o' Cris Rock?"

"What! Cris Rock of Texas? He who at Fanning's--"

"At Fannin's massacree war shot dead, and kim alive agin."

"Yes," said the interrogator, whose interrogatory referred to the almost
miraculous escape of one of the betrayed victims of the Goliad butchery.

"Jess so, young feller. An' since ye 'pear to know somethin' 'bout me,
I needn't tell ye I ain't no _bill-sticker_, nor why I 'peared to show
impartinence by putting in my jaw when I heern ye sing out, `I'll go.'
I thort it wouldn't need much introduxshun to one as I mout soon hope to
call kumarade. Yer comin' to the rendyvoo the night, ain't ye?"

"Yes; I intend doing so."

"Wal, I'll be there myself; an' if ye'll only look high enough, I reck'n
ye kin sight me 'mong the crowd. 'Tain't like to be the shortest thar,"
he added, with a smile that bespoke pride in his superior stature, "tho'
ye'll see some tall 'uns too. Anyhow, jest look out for Cris Rock; and,
when foun', that chile may be of some sarvice to ye."

"I shall do so," rejoined the other, whose good humour had become quite
restored.

About to bid good-bye, Rock held out a hand, broad as the blade of a
canoe-paddle. It was freely taken by the stranger, who, while shaking
it, saw that he was being examined from head to foot.

"Look hyar!" pursued the Colossus, as if struck by some thought which a
closer scrutiny of the young man's person had suggested; "hev ye ever
did any sogerin'? Ye've got the look o' it."

"I was educated in a military school--that's all."

"Where? In the States?"

"No. I am from the other side of the Atlantic."

"Oh! A Britisher. Wal, that don't make no difference in Texas. Thar's
all sorts thar. English, ain't ye?"

"No," promptly answered the stranger, with a slight scornful curling of
the lip: "I'm an Irishman, and not one of those who deny it."

"All the better for that. Thar's a bit of the same blood somewhar in my
own veins, out o' a grandmother, I b'lieve, as kim over the mountains
into Kaintu