I drives cattle over it an' I freights over it,--me an' my eight-mule team.

An' I shorely knows where all the grass an' wood an' water is from the Red River to the Flint Hills.
"Speakin' of the Jones an' Plummer trail, I once hears a dance-hall girl who volunteers some songs over in a Tucson hurdygurdy, an' that maiden sort o' dims my sights some.

First, she gives us _The Dying Ranger_, the same bein' enough of itse'f to start a sob or two; speshul when folks is, as Colonel Sterett says, 'a leetle drinkin'.' Then when the public clamours for more she sings something which begins: "'Thar's many a boy who once follows the herds, On the Jones an' Plummer trail; Some dies of drink an' some of lead, An' some over kyards, an' none in bed; But they're dead game sports, so with naught but good words, We gives 'em "Farewell an' hail."' "Son, this sonnet brings down mem'ries; and they so stirs me I has to _vamos_ that hurdygurdy to keep my emotions from stampedin' into tears.
Shore, thar's soft spots in me the same as in oilier gents; an' that melody a-makin' of references to the old Jones an' Plummer days comes mighty clost to meltin' everything about me but my guns an' spurs.
"This yere cattle business ain't what it used to be; no more is cow-punchers.

Things is gettin' effete.

These day it's a case of chutes an' brandin' pens an' wire fences an' ten-mile pastures, an' thar's so little ropin' that a boy don't have practice enough to know how to catch his pony.
"In the times I'm dreamin' of all this is different.