e of those
chunks you dug out this afternoon that don't weigh over two dollars."

Daggett sent the chunk to a place where it would melt quick, and
expressed a hope we'd follow it. With that he hopped into his go-cart
and pulled for town, larruping the poor horse sinful. We had the
pleasure of seeing the animile turn the outfit into the gully in return
for the compliment. They scrambled in again and disappeared from view.
Then Aggy reached out his hand to me.

"Don't tell me nothing but the plain truth, old man," says he; "I can't
bear nothing except the plainest kind of truth, but on your sacred word
of honour, ain't your uncle Ag a corker?"

"Aggy," says I, "I ain't up to the occasion. There ain't a man on
earth could do credit to your qualities but yourself."

Then we shook hands mighty hearty.

Where the Horse is Fate

One thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no other kind of
ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to
the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was
organised on scientific principles: none of your
gol-darned-heads-or-tails--who's-it--what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it.
Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most complex minute, couldn't
have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little
roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees.
Here's how I secured the first man--he didn't look like good material
to the careless eye.

Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that
overlooks the Southwest road into the Bad Lands, when I see a parcel of
riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.

"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.

"What the devil now?" he groans. "Injuns? Road-agents?"

"Nope," says I, getting out my field glass. I had guessed it: there
was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man
in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching,
when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I
give it up. Seems like something passed from them to me that wasn't
sight. And also if you ask why, when through the glass I got a better
view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you
have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was
something----

[Illustration: Through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil
about to be strung]

"See here, Burton," says I.