Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE]

In the land of the sage and the cottonwood,
The cactus plant and the sand,
When you've just dropped in from the effete East
There's a greeting that's simply grand;
It's when some giant comes up to you,
With a hand that weighs a ton,
And cries as he smites you on the back;
"Why, you derned old son of a gun!"

Texas, quoting Col. Bailey of the Houston Post, "is a symphony, a vast hunk of mellifluence, an eternal melody of loveliness, a grand anthem of agglomerated and majestic beneficence. Texas is heaven on earth and sea and sky set to music."

With ample room to spare, Texas would accommodate either Austria-Hungary, Germany and France; and if it were populated as thickly as is Belgium it would have a population of over 265,000,000.

The State of Texas could accommodate comfortably the people of all the European nations.

Texas was wild and woolly when Alfred first toured it with a wagon show. Weatherford was away out west; Dallas was in its swaddling clothes and Houston was a village. Hunting was good just over the corporation line and there was no closed season on anything. Charley Gibbs and Henry Greenwall owned the State. Charley Highsmith was a schoolboy; he had never owned a dog or looked along the barrels of a double-barreled gun. Mike Conley was setting type in a printing office run by hand, and Bill Sterritt was the printer's devil, excepting when ducks were coming in. Ben McCullough was the only railroad man in north Texas, and George Green the only Republican in the State. Jake Zurn had not left Germany and Jim Hogg was a cowboy.

A pair of Texas ponies, an open buggy, a doubled-barreled shotgun, two dogs and an invalid, were Alfred's constant companions on that tour of Texas. The invalid who was touring Texas for his health, was a relative of the managers, a German, refined and scholarly, a high class gentleman.

This was the introduction:

"Alfred, Mr. Smith is not well. The doctor advised that he live in the open. He is my guest and I want him to ride with you. I am sure you will like him. I want this trip to benefit his health. You have the best team with the company. You can make the route in half the time it requires the show to drive it. Sleep late in the morning."

Despite this advice, the invalid and Alfred were well on their way by daylight almost every morning, nor did they make the routes in half the time the show did. It was more frequently the reverse, particularly if the shooting was good. The invalid was the wellest sick-man companion ever toured with. His cheeks were sallow, low in flesh, but the spirit was there. It was a case of the invalid looking after the nurse. The vast plains were covered with cattle—Texas steers. The invalid marvelled at their numbers. While Alfred was scouring the prairie with dog and gun the invalid would stand erect in the buggy, on the road side, computing the number of Texas steers within sight. How the cattle men separated their droves, claiming their cattle, was a wonderment. Cowboys and Texas steers was a theme on which the invalid never tired talking. Texas steers were a hobby with him. He would talk with cowboys for hours, collecting information.