fter the delectable supper, Sam untied the green duck bag and took
out his guitar. Not by way of payment, mind you--neither Sam Galloway
nor any other of the true troubadours are lineal descendants of the
late Tommy Tucker. You have read of Tommy Tucker in the works of the
esteemed but often obscure Mother Goose. Tommy Tucker sang for his
supper. No true troubadour would do that. He would have his supper,
and then sing for Art's sake.

Sam Galloway's repertoire comprised about fifty funny stories and
between thirty and forty songs. He by no means stopped there. He could
talk through twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up. And
he never sat up when he could lie down; and never stood when he could
sit. I am strongly disposed to linger with him, for I am drawing a
portrait as well as a blunt pencil and a tattered thesaurus will
allow.

I wish you could have seen him: he was small and tough and
inactive beyond the power of imagination to conceive. He wore an
ultramarine-blue woollen shirt laced down the front with a pearl-gray,
exaggerated sort of shoestring, indestructible brown duck clothes,
inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican spurs, and a Mexican straw
sombrero.

That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under
the hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour
gaily touched his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird,
melancholy, minor-keyed _canciones_ that he had learned from the
Mexican sheep herders and _vaqueros_. One, in particular, charmed and
soothed the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the
sheep herders, beginning: "_Huile, huile, palomita_," which being
translated means, "Fly, fly, little dove." Sam sang it for old man
Ellison many times that evening.

The troubadour stayed on at the old man's ranch. There was peace and
quiet and appreciation there, such as he had not found in the noisy
camps of the cattle kings. No audience in the world could have crowned
the work of poet, musician, or artist with more worshipful and
unflagging approval than that bestowed upon his efforts by old man
Ellison. No visit by a royal personage to a humble woodchopper or
peasant could have been received with more flattering thankfulness and
joy.

On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the hackberry trees Sam
Galloway passed the greater part of his time. There he rolled his
brown paper cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch
af