tails, those would take care of themselves as the
affair developed. Having come to which sapient decision I shoved the
whole irritating mess over the edge of my mind and rode on quite happy.
I told you at the start of this yarn that I was a kid.

My mind being now quite easy as to my future actions, I gave thought to
the first step. That was supper. There seemed to me no adequate reason,
with a fine, long night before me, why I shouldn't use a little of the
shank end of it to stoke up for the rest. So I turned at the right-hand
fork and jogged slowly toward our own ranch.

Of course I had the rotten luck to find most of the boys still at the
water corral. When they saw who was the lone horseman approaching
through the dusk of the spring twilight, and got a good fair look at the
ensemble, they dropped everything and came over to see about it, headed
naturally by those mournful blights, Windy Bill and Wooden. In solemn
silence they examined my outfit, paying not the slightest attention to
me. At the end of a full minute they looked at each other.

"What do you think, Sam?" asked Windy.

"My opinion is not quite formed, suh," replied Wooden, who was a
Texican. "But my first examination inclines me to the belief that it is
a hoss."

"Yo're wrong, Sam," denied Windy, sadly; "yo're judgment is confused by
the fact that the critter carries a saddle. Look at the animile itself."

"I have done it," continued Sam Wooden; "at first glance I should agree
with you. Look carefully, Windy. Examine the details; never mind the
_toot enscramble_. It's got hoofs."

"So's a cow, a goat, a burro, a camel, a hippypottamus, and the devil,"
pointed out Windy.

"Of course I may be wrong," acknowledged Wooden. "On second examination
I probably am wrong. But if it ain't a hoss, then what is it? Do you
know?"

"It's a genuine royal gyasticutus," esserted Windy Bill, positively. "I
seen one once. It has one peculiarity that you can't never fail to
identify it by."

"What's that?"

"It invariably travels around with a congenital idiot."

Wooden promptly conceded that, but claimed the identification not
complete as he doubted whether, strictly speaking, I could be classified
as a congenital idiot. Windy pointed out that evidently I had traded
Tiger for the gyasticutus. Wooden admitted that this proved me an idiot,
but not necessarily a congenital idiot.

This colloquy--and more like it--went on with entire gravity. The other
men were