t last so nobly as defendin' this Greaser here;
For he's wounded, now, and helpless, and hasn't had no fair show;
And the first of ye boys that strikes him, I'll lay that first one
low."
The gang respected the stranger that for another was willing to die;
They respected the look of daring they saw in that cold, blue eye.
They saw before them a hero that was glad in the right to fall;
And he was a Texas cowboy,--never heard of Rome at all.
Don't tell me of yer Romans, or yer bridge bein' held by three;
True manhood's the same in Texas as it was in Rome, d'ye see?
Did the Greaser escape? Why certain. I saw the hull crowd over thar
At the ranch of Bill Simmons, the gopher, with their glasses over the
bar.
_From recitation. Anonymous._

BRONCHO VERSUS BICYCLE

THE first that we saw of the high-tone tramp
War over thar at our Pecos camp;
He war comin' down the Santa Fe trail
Astride of a wheel with a crooked tail,
A-skinnin' along with a merry song
An' a-ringin' a little warnin' gong.
He looked so outlandish, strange and queer
That all of us grinned from ear to ear,
And every boy on the round-up swore
He never seed sich a hoss before.

Wal, up he rode with a sunshine smile
An' a-smokin' a cigarette, an' I'll
Be kicked in the neck if I ever seen
Sich a saddle as that on his queer machine.
Why, it made us laugh, fer it wasn't half
Big enough fer the back of a suckin' calf.
He tuk our fun in a keerless way,
A-venturin' only once to say
Thar wasn't a broncho about the place
Could down that wheel in a ten-mile race.

I'd a lightnin' broncho out in the herd
That could split the air like a flyin' bird,
An' I hinted round in an off-hand way,
That, providin' the enterprize would pay,
I thought as I might jes' happen to light
On a hoss that would leave him out er sight.
In less'n a second we seen him yank
A roll o' greenbacks out o' his flank,
An' he said if we wanted to bet, to name
The limit, an' he would tackle the game.

Jes' a week before we had all been down
On a jamboree to the nearest town,
An' the whiskey joints and the faro games
An' a-shakin' our hoofs with the dance hall dames,
Made a wholesale bust; an', pard, I'll be cussed
If a man in the outfit had any dust.
An' so I expla