is torn up complete an' the bottom of the river nothin' save
b'ilin' sand with a shallow yere an' a hole deep enough to drown a house
scooped out jest beyond. An' how since I can't pause a week or two for
the river to run down an' the ford to settle, I goes spraddlin' an'
tumblin' an' swimmin' across on Tom, my nigh wheeler, opens negotiations
with the LIT ranch, an' Bob Roberson, has his riders round-up the
pasture, an' comes chargin' down to the ford with a bunch of one thousand
ponies, all of 'em dancin' an' buckin' an' prancin' like chil'en outen
school. Roberson an' the LIT boys throws the thousand broncos across an'
across the ford for mighty likely it's fifty times. They'd flash 'em
through--the whole band together--on the run; an' then round 'em up on
the opp'site bank, turn 'em an' jam 'em through ag'in. When they ceases,
the bottom of the river is tramped an' beat out as hard an' as flat as a
floor, an' I hooks up an' brings the waggons over like the
ford--bottomless quicksand a hour prior--is one of these yere asphalt
streets.

"Or I might relate about a cowboy tournament that's held over in the flat
green bottom of Parker's arroya; an' how Jack Coombs throws a rope an'
fastens at one hundred an' four foot, while Waco Simpson rides at the
herd of cattle one hundred foot away, ropes, throws an' ties down a
partic'lar steer, frees his lariat an' is back with the jedges ag'in in
forty-eight seconds. Waco wins the prize, a Mexican
saddle--stamp-leather an' solid gold she is--worth four hundred dollars,
by them onpreecedented alacrities.

"Or, I might impart about a Mexican fooneral where the hearse is a
blanket with two poles along the aige, the same as one of these battle
litters; of the awful songs the mournful Mexicans sings about departed;
of the candles they burns an' the dozens of baby white-pine crosses they
sets up on little jim-crow stone-heaps along the trail to the tomb;
meanwhiles, howlin' dirges constant.

"Now I thinks of it I might bresh up the recollections of a mornin' when
I rolls over, blankets an' all, onto something that feels as big as a
boot-laig an' plenty squirmy; an' how I shows zeal a-gettin' to my feet,
knowin' I'm reposin' on a rattlesnake who's bunked in ag'in my back all
sociable to warm himse'f. It's worth any gent's while to see how heated
an' indignant that serpent takes it because of me turnin' out so early
and so swift.

"Then thar's a mornin' when I finds myse'f not