They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet.
'Whiskey,' said Jim.
'Make it two,' said the dogman.
'I thought about you,' said Jim, 'when I bought that wild land. I wished you was out there to help me with the stock.'
'Last Tuesday,' said the dogman, 'he bit me on the ankle because I asked for cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream.'
'You'd like Prairie View now,' said Jim. 'The boys from the round-ups for fifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is in sixteen miles of the town. There's a straight forty miles of wire on one side of it.'
'You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom,' said the dogman, 'and you pass through the parlour to get to the bath room, and you back out through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can turn around and leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his sleep, and I have to smoke in the park on account of his asthma.'
'Don't Missis Telfair--' began Jim.
'Oh, shut up!' said the dogman. 'What is it this time?'
'Whiskey,' said Jim.
'Make it two,' said the dogman.
'Well, I'll be racking along down toward the ferry,' said the other.
'Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-legged ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!' shouted the dogman, with a new note in his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian.
At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging doors.
'Last chance,' said he. 'Speak up.'
'Whiskey,' said Jim.
'Make it two,' said the dogman.
'I don't know,' said the ranchman, 'where I'll find the man I want to take charge of the Little Powder outfit. I want somebody I know something about. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever squinted your eye over, Sam. Now if you was --'
'Speaking of hydrophobia,' said the dogman, 'the other night he chewed a piece out of my leg because I knocked a fly off of Marcella's arm. 'It ought to be cauterized,' says Marcella, and I was thinking so myself. I telephones for the doctor, and when he comes Marcella says to me: 'Help me hold the poor dear while the doctor fixes his mouth. Oh, I hope he got no virus on any of his toofies when he bit you.' Now what do you think of that?'
'Does Missis Telfair--' began Jim.
'Oh, drop it,' said the dogman. 'Come again!'
'Whiskey,' said Jim.
'Make it two,' said the dogman.
They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket window.
Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy kicks was heard, the air. was rent by piercing canine shrieks, and a pained, outraged, lubberly, bow-legged pudding of a dog ran frenziedly up the street alone.
'Ticket to Denver,' said Jim.
'Make it two,' shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside pocket.
If you should speak of the Kiowa Reservation to the average New Yorker he probably wouldn't know whether you were referring to a new political dodge at Albany or a leitmotif from 'Parsifal.' But out in the Kiowa Reservation advices have been received concerning the existence of New York.
A party of us were on a hunting trip in the Reservation. Bud Kingsbury, our guide, philosopher, and friend, was broiling antelope steaks in camp one night. One of the party, a pinkish-haired young man in a correct hunting costume, sauntered over to the fire to light a cigarette, and remarked carelessly to Bud:
'Nice night!'
'Why, yes,' said Bud, 'as nice as any night could be that ain't received the Broadway stamp of approval.'
Now, the young man was from New York, but the rest of us wondered how Bud guessed it. So, when the steaks were done, we besought him to lay bare his system of ratiocination. And as Bud was something of a Territorial talking machine he made oration as follows:
'How did I know he was from New York? Well, I figured it out as soon as he sprung them two words on me. I was in New York myself a couple of years ago, and I noticed some of the earmarks and hoof tracks of the Rancho Manhattan.'
'Found New York rather different from the Panhandle, didn't you, Bud?' asked one of the hunters.
'Can't say that I did,' answered Bud; 'anyways, not more than some. The main trail in that town which they call Broadway is plenty travelled, but they're about the same brand of bipeds that tramp around in Cheyenne and Amarillo, At first I was sort of rattled by the crowds, but I soon says to myself, 'Here, now, Bud; they're just plain folks like you and Geronimo and Grover Cleveland and the Watson boys, so don't get all flustered up with consternation under your saddle blanket,' and then I feels calm and peaceful, like I was back in the Nation again at a ghost dance or a green corn pow-wow.
