all day? Nice morning, ain't it? Say 'yes.'"

"Yes," says he.

"I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse
as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like
you bark at him."

"Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play
at you." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the prisoner,
who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him
with the goods."

"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that
first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much
alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse
haste and a bad pen," says I; "but why don't I draw cards? Both
parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it,
boys?"

"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."

"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to
whether my hair is any particular colour or not, is discussed in
private, by familiar friends only--savvy the burro, how he kickee with
hees hin' leg?"

They laughed.

"All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us!"

I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if
there's anything a young man likes--a good, hearty boy--it's to see a
brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns
shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in
general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't
so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a
streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident
to the practised vision.

I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for
one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow-man to think
of for another: distracted their attention, which you got to do with
children.

"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.

"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we
trotted on towards the cotton-woods.

The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized
the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an
obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my
heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow
sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't
take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many
condition