the spring-wagons so full of
prairie chickens and quail that they jolted out at every rut. Samp would
always lead the singing--being just a mite more lubricated than the rest
of us, and the girls thought he was all hunkey dorey--as they used to
say.

[Illustration: "He made a lot of money and blew it in"]

"He made a lot of money and blew it in at Jim Thomas's saloon, buying
drinks, playing stud poker, betting on quarter horses, and lending it
out to fellows who helped him forget they'd borrowed it. And--say in
two or three years, after the chicken-hunting set had married off, and
begun in a way to settle down--Samp took up with the next set coming on;
he married and got the prettiest girl in town. We always thought that he
married only because he wanted to be a good fellow and did not wish to
be impolite to the girl he'd paired off with in the first crowd. Still
he didn't stay home nights, and once or twice a year--say, election or
Fourth of July--he and a lot of other young fellows would go out and tip
over all the board sidewalks in town, and paint funny signs on the store
buildings and stack beer bottles on the preacher's front porch, and
raise Ned generally. And the fellows of his age, who owned the stores
and were in nights, would say to Samp when they saw him coming down
about noon the next day:

"'Go it when you're young Samp, for when you're old you can't.' And he
would wink at 'em, give 'em ten dollars apiece for their damages and
jolly his way down the street to his office.

"Now, you mustn't get the idea that Samp was the town drunkard, for he
never was. He was just a good fellow. When the second set of young
fellows outgrew him and settled down, he picked up with the third, and
his wife's brown alpaca began to be noticed more or less among the
women. But Samp's practice didn't seem to fall off--it only changed. He
didn't have so much real estate lawing and got more criminal practice.
Gradually he became a criminal lawyer, and his fame for wit and
eloquence extended over all the State. When a cowpuncher got in trouble
his folks in the East always gave Samp a big fee to get the boy out, and
he did it. When he went to any other county-seat besides our own to try
a case, the fellows--and you know who the fellows are in a town--the
fellows knew that while Samp was in town there would be something going
on with 'fireworks in the evening.' For he was a great fellow for a good
time, and the dining-room girls a