Roughing It

street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had ne

ring trees standing on either bank. The Platte was "up," they said-which made me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But t

who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the p

f course I couldn't, the old 'Allen's' so confounded comprehensive. I wish those loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldn't have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse worth a cent-but no, the minute he saw that buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight u

orse dropped down on all fours and took a fresh start-and then for the next ten minutes he would actually throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and didn't know where to start in-and so he stood there sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck-the horse's, no

cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left, and as the saddle went down over the horse's rump he gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he didn't. I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the nex

take your saddle up

u talk. Of course I didn't. No man could do

exac

the Allen with a double charge. I felt satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing that I dread, all right-but if he does, all right anyhow-I am fixed for him. But don't you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now

, the

rse-who

l can't cl

you know so much about it,

dreamt of s

hat way, then? Because you never saw a thing d

ght-go on. Wh

over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, 'You are my meat, friend.' Up again-higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. He was within ten feet of me! I took a long breath,-and then said I, 'It is now or never.' I had the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slipnoose fell fa

t true, just as yo

tracks and die the dea

lieve it, and we don't. But

I bring bac

N

ing back

N

er see the

N

never saw anybody as particular as y

by the name of Eckert, an Englishman-a person famous for the number, ingenuity and imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to "draw him out" before strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was

hen we get there, we must play him finer than that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself-let him drop it or change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will

ll manner of things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert's lead, and betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was

ng as neither you nor any other man ever heard of-I've got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Com

Bascom-a glance th

ver heard of such a thing

ld say it. I'll

the house.

put his suspicions to sleep. I am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat a cocoanut-o

coanut-the in

hed with his c

smiled.

e cat-you bri

gled a wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss.

ough Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding th

. And-you need not speak of