n Mitchell's canyon a
couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her
two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely
deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers
takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains.
That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she
ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a
anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't
possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions.

"It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got
through his day's toil on that _Coyote_ paper he's editor of, onfolds
concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth.

"'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third
tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm
a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is.
An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the
dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a
child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for learnin' promotes me to be
regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the
school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up,
the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit.
Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode--the
teacher's done wrote it himse'f--an' which is entitled _Napoleon's Mad
Career_. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin'
selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with
the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said
recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty
clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse:

I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar
An' fall down in the mud,
While the y'earth for forty miles about
Is kivered with my blood.

"'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't
simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he
means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it
jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I
finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the
brim!

"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel,