as you're busted, of course I stakes you moderate on your way.""'It's this bluff about me not havin' money puts me in mind later that this Bill must have rustled my raiments when he finds me that time when I'm presided over by coyotes while I sleeps.When he says it, however, I merely remarks that while I'm grateful to him as mockin'-birds, money after all ain't no object with me; an', pullin'
off my nigh moccasin, I pours some two pounds of specie onto the blankets.
"'"Which I packs this in my boot," I observes, "to put mysc'f in mind I've got a roll big enough to fill a nose-bag over to Howard's store.""'"An' I'm feelin' the galiest to hear it," says this Spanish Bill;though as I su'gests he acts pained an' amazed, like a gent who's over-looked a bet.
"'Well, that's all thar is to that part.That's where Spanish Bill launches that bread of his'n; an' the way it later turns out it sorter b'ars down on me, an' keeps me rememberin' what that skyscout says at the pra'r-meetin' about the action a gent gets by playin' a good deed to win.
"'It's the middle of January, mebby two months later, when I'm over on the Upper Caliente about fifty miles back of the Spanish Peaks.
I'm workin' a bunch of cattle; Cross-K is the brand; y'ear-marks a swallow-fork in the left, with the right y'ear onderhacked.'
"What's the good of a y'ear-mark when thar's a brand?" repeated the Old Cattleman after me, for I had interrupted with the question.
"Whatever's the good of y'ear-marks? Why, when mixed cattle is in a bunch, standin' so close you can't see no brands on their sides, an'
you-all is ridin' through the outfit cuttin' out, y'ear-marks is what you goes by.Cattle turns to look as you comes ridin' an'
pesterin' among 'em, an' their two y'ears p'ints for'ard like fans.
You gets their y'ear-marks like printin' on the page of a book.If you was to go over a herd by the brands, you wouldn't cut out a steer an hour.But to trail back after Boggs.
"`It's two months later, an' I'm ridin' down a draw one day,' says this Dan Boggs, 'cussin' the range an' the weather, when my pony goes to havin' symptoms.This yere pony is that sagacious that while it makes not the slightest mention of cattle when they's near, it never comes up on deer, or people in the hills, but it takes to givin' of manifestations.This is so I can squar myse'f for whatever game they opens on us.
"`As I says, me an' this yere wise pony is pushin' out into the Caliente when the pony begins to make signs.I brings him down all cautious where we can look across the valley, an'
[Illustration with caption: "Nacherally I stops an' surveys him careful]
you-all can gamble I'm some astonished to see a gent walkin' along afoot, off mebby a couple hundred yards.He sorter limps an' leans over on one side like he's hurt.Nacherally I stops an' surveys him careful.It's plenty strange he's thar at all; an' stranger still he's afoot.I looks him over for weepons; I wants to note what he's like an' how he's heeled.
"'You saveys as well as me it don't do to go canterin' out to strangers that a-way in the hills; speshully a stranger who's afoot.
He might hunger for your pony for one thing, an' open a play on you with his gun, as would leave you afoot an' likewise too dead to know it.
