drive of that same locoed plaza of
Tramperos. As I'm settin' in camp with the sun still plenty high--I'm
compilin' flapjacks at the time--I sees eight or ten ravens wheelin' an'
cirklin' over beyond a swell about three miles to the left.

"'Tom an' Jerry for a bloo stack!' I says to myse'f; an' with that I
cinches the saddle onto James precip'tate.

"Shore enough; I'm on the scene of the tragedy. Half way down a rocky
slope where thar ain't grass enough to cover the brown nakedness of the
ground lies the bones of Tom an' Jerry. This latter, who's that
obstinate an' resentful he won't go back to camp when I wallops him on
that gray mare mornin', allows he'll secrete himse'f an' Tom off to one
side an' worrit me up. While he's manooverin' about he gets the
half-inch rope he's draggin' tangled good an' fast in a mesquite bush.
It shorely holds him; that bush is old Jerry's last picket---his last
camp. Which he'd a mighty sight better played his hand out with me, even
if I does ring in a trace-chain on him at needed intervals. Jerry jest
nacherally starves to death for grass an' water. An' what's doubly hard
the lovin' Tom, troo to the last, starves with him. Thar's water within
two miles; but Tom declines it, stays an' starves with Jerry, an' the
ravens an' the coyotes picks their frames."

CHAPTER IX.

The Influence of Faro Nell.

"Thar's no doubt about it," observed the Old Cattleman, apropos of the
fairer, better sex--for woman was the gentle subject of our morning's
talk; "thar's no doubt about it, females is a refinin' an' ennoblin'
inflooence; you-all can hazard your chips on that an' pile 'em higher
than Cook's Peak! An' when Faro Nell prefers them requests, she's
ondoubted moved of feelin's of mercy. They shore does her credit, said
motives does, an' if she had asked Cherokee or Jack Moore, or even
Texas Thompson, things would have come off as effective an' a mighty
sight more discreet. But since he's standin' thar handy, Nell ups an'
recroots Dan Boggs on the side of hoomanity, an' tharupon Dan goes
trackin' in without doo reflection, an' sets the Mexicans examples
which, to give 'em a best deescription, is shore some bad. It ain't
Nell's fault, but Dan is a gent of sech onusual impulses that you-all
don't know wherever Dan will land none, once you goes pokin' up his
ha'r-hung sensibil'ties with su'gestions that is novel to his game.
Still, Nell can't he'p it; an' in view of what we knows t