“I camps two days where I’m at, an rounds up the region for the trooants.  I goes over it like a fine-tooth comb an’ rides James to a show-down.  That bronco never is so long onder the saddle since he’s foaled; I don’t reckon he knows before thar’s so much hard work in the world as falls to him when we goes ransackin’ in quest of Tom an’ Jerry.

“It’s no use; the ground is hard an’ dry an’ I can’t even see their hoof-marks.  The country’s so rollin’, too, it’s no trouble for ’em to hide.  At last I quits an’ throws my hand in the diskyard.  Tom an’ Jerry is shore departed an’ I’m deeficient my two best mules.  I hooks up the others, an’ seein’ it’s down hill an’ a easy trail I makes Tascosa an’ refits.

“I never crosses up on Tom an’ Jerry in this yere life no more, but one day I learns their fate.  It’s a month later on my next trip back, an’ I’m camped about a half day’s drive of that same locoed plaza of Tramperos.  As I’m settin’ in camp with the sun still plenty high—­I’m compilin’ flapjacks at the time—­I sees eight or ten ravens wheelin’ an’ cirklin’ over beyond a swell about three miles to the left.

“‘Tom an’ Jerry for a bloo stack!’ I says to myse’f; an’ with that I cinches the saddle onto James precip’tate.

“Shore enough; I’m on the scene of the tragedy.  Half way down a rocky slope where thar ain’t grass enough to cover the brown nakedness of the ground lies the bones of Tom an’ Jerry.  This latter, who’s that obstinate an’ resentful he won’t go back to camp when I wallops him on that gray mare mornin’, allows he’ll secrete himse’f an’ Tom off to one side an’ worrit me up.  While he’s manooverin’ about he gets the half-inch rope he’s draggin’ tangled good an’ fast in a mesquite bush.  It shorely holds him; that bush is old Jerry’s last picket—–­his last camp.  Which he’d a mighty sight better played his hand out with me, even if I does ring in a trace-chain on him at needed intervals.  Jerry jest nacherally starves to death for grass an’ water.  An’ what’s doubly hard the lovin’ Tom, troo to the last, starves with him.  Thar’s water within two miles; but Tom declines it, stays an’ starves with Jerry, an’ the ravens an’ the coyotes picks their frames.”

CHAPTER IX.

The Influence of Faro Nell.

“Thar’s no doubt about it,” observed the Old Cattleman, apropos of the fairer, better sex—­for woman was the gentle subject of our morning’s talk; “thar’s no doubt about it, females is a refinin’ an’ ennoblin’ inflooence; you-all can hazard your chips on that an’ pile ’em higher than Cook’s Peak!  An’ when Faro Nell prefers them requests, she’s ondoubted moved of feelin’s of mercy.  They shore does her credit, said motives does, an’ if she had asked Cherokee or Jack Moore, or even Texas Thompson, things would have come off as effective an’ a mighty sight more discreet.  But since he’s standin’ thar handy, Nell ups an’ recroots