rs
have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me. My physician
insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is
exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to
return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of
Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some
yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you
say, Mr. Scraggs?'

"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a
trifle.

"'Ah!' says he, waving his specks in enthusiasm. 'The abiding
peace of a life like yours!--I beg your pardon?'

"'I have an attack of this here bronco-kitus,' says I. 'I cough
almost like conversation--go on.'

"'To live,' says he, 'in the great peace of these enormous
spaces--to spread God's clean sky above you and pass into a sleep
where this sweet air shall hush me through the night, like the wind
from angels' wings. With what a sick longing have I looked for
this!

"'That's it!' says I. 'Pardner, you've struck it. There ain't one
man in a thousand thinks of tuckin' the sky around him when he
turns in, but many a time when I've shoveled the last batch of
centipedes and tarantulas into the fire, petted a side-winder
good-night, and fired a farewell shot at a scalplock vanishin' over
the hill, I've thought that same thing. Oh! the soothin'
gooley-woo of windin' yourself up in a bright-colored sunset and
lyin' down to peaceful dreams! I sleep too hard to remember about
the angels' wings.'

"I spoke so earnest he swallowed me whole. 'Centipedes and
tarantulas,' says he, musin' (evidently he hadn't figured on 'em);
'an' what is a "side-winder," Mr. Scraggs?'

"'A "side-winder," sir,' says I, 'is a rattlesnake who travels on
the bias, as I've heard my wife remark about her clothes--he's a
kind of Freemason; he lets you in on the level and out on the
queer."

"'Rattlesnake?' says he; 'ha--hum--rattlesnake, yes, yes, yes--not
dangerous, I hope?'

"'Oh, no!' says I. 'He bites you up somewhat, but it's only play.'

"Right here he got off a joke. It took some time--I see it comin.'

"Rather dangerous _play_, that, Mr. Scraggs, heh?' says he. 'Ha,
ha, ha!'

"Well, I reckon I enjoyed that joke as much as he did--the two of
us laughed for five minutes. But, somehow, he looked so simple and
innocent and foolish, my heart bucked on guyin' him. There wasn't
no bad pretensions about him; it was only that the old ladies had
to