old buck field or the
widow's acre into any crop, they first go projecting around in the
soil, and, as they say, analyze it, to see what kind of a fertilizer
it will require to produce the best results. Back there if one man
raises ten acres of corn and his neighbor raises twelve, the one
raising twelve is sure to look upon the other as though he lacked
enterprise or had modest ambitions. Now, up around that old cow town,
Abilene, Kansas, it's a common sight to see the cornfields stretch out
like an ocean.

"And then their stock--they are all locoed about that. Why, I know
people who will pay a hundred dollars for siring a colt, and if
there's one drop of mongrel blood in that sire's veins for ten
generations back on either side of his ancestral tree, it condemns
him, though he may be a good horse otherwise. They are strong on
standard bred horses; but as for me, my mount is all right. I wouldn't
trade with any man in this outfit, without it would be Flood, and
there's none of them standard bred either. Why, shucks! if you had the
pick of all the standard bred horses in Tennessee, you couldn't handle
a herd of cattle like ours with them, without carrying a commissary
with you to feed them. No; they would never fit here--it takes a
range-raised horse to run cattle; one that can rustle and live on
grass."

[Illustration: STORY TELLING]

"Another thing about those people back in those old States: Not one in
ten, I'll gamble, knows the teacher he sends his children to school
to. But when he has a promising colt to be shod, the owner goes to the
blacksmith shop himself, and he and the smith will sit on the back
sill of the shop, and they will discuss how to shoe that filly so as
to give her certain knee action which she seems to need. Probably,
says one, a little weight on her toe would give her reach. And there
they will sit and powwow and make medicine for an hour or two. And
while the blacksmith is shoeing her, the owner will tell him in
confidence what a wonderful burst of speed she developed yesterday,
while he was speeding her on the back stretch. And then just as he
turned her into the home stretch, she threw a shoe and he had to check
her in; but if there'd been any one to catch her time, he was certain
it was better than a two-ten clip. And that same colt, you couldn't
cut a lame cow out of the shade of a tree on her. A man back
there--he's rich, too, though his father made it--gave a thousand
dollars for a pai