--which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped
to the earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is
the power of habit and imagination) than you could devise out of a
half-inch rope and a live-oak tree.

These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette
paper in his hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the
storekeeper. Sam stood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on
his pink madras shirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the
only pair of tan shoes within a forty-mile radius. His offence had
been serious, and he was divided between humble apology and admiration
for the beauty of his raiment. He had allowed the ranch stock of
"smoking" to become exhausted.

"I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter, boys,"
he explained. "But it happened to be catterdges."

"You've sure got a case of happenedicitis," said Poky Rodgers, fency
rider of the Largo Verde _potrero_ [61]. "Somebody ought to happen to
give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. I've rode in
nine miles for some tobacco; and it don't appear natural and seemly that
you ought to be allowed to live."

[FOOTNOTE 61: potrero--(Spanish) pasture, grassland]

"The boys was smokin' cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed when I
left," sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp.
"They'll be lookin' for me back by nine. They'll be settin' up,
with their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thing before
bedtime. And I've got to tell 'em that this pink-eyed, sheep-headed,
sulphur-footed, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, Sam Revell,
hasn't got no tobacco on hand."

Gregorio Falcon, Mexican vaquero and best thrower of the rope on the
Cibolo, pushed his heavy, silver-embroidered straw sombrero back upon
his thicket of jet black curls, and scraped the bottoms of his pockets
for a few crumbs of the precious weed.

"Ah, Don Samuel," he said, reproachfully, but with his touch of
Castilian manners, "escuse me. Dthey say dthe jackrabbeet and dthe
sheep have dthe most leetle _sesos_--how you call dthem--brain-es?
Ah don't believe dthat, Don Samuel--escuse me. Ah dthink people w'at
don't keep esmokin' tobacco, dthey--bot you weel escuse me, Don
Samuel."

"Now, what's the use of chewin' the rag, boys," said the untroubled
Sam, stooping over to rub the toes of his shoes with a red-and-yellow
handkerchief. "Ranse took the order fo