"'Great big taters on sandy land,
Get thar, Eli, if you can.'
"The next thing I'm aware of, thar's a whoop an' a yell outside. We- alls wakes up—all except the infant, who's wide awake all along— an' yere it is; four o'clock in the mornin', an' the mother has come. Comes over on a speshul buckboard from the station where that old inebriate, Monte, drove off an' left her. Well, son, everybody's plumb willin' an' glad to see her. An' for that matter, splittin' even, so's the infant."
CHAPTER XII. THE MAN FROM YELLOWHOUSE.
"That's straight, son; you shorely should have seen Jack Moore," continued the Old Cattleman, after a brief pause, as he hitched his chair into a comfortable position; "not seein' Jack is what any gent might call deeprivation.
"Back in the old days," he went on, "Jack Moore, as I relates, is kettle-tender an' does the rope work of the Stranglers. Whatever is the Stranglers? Which you asks Borne late. I mentions this assembly a heap frequent yeretofore. Well, some folks calls 'ern the 'vig'lance committee'; but that's long for a name, so in Wolfville we allers allooded to 'em as `Stranglers.' This yere is brief, an' likewise sheds some light.
"This Jack Moore—which I'm proud to say he's my friend—I reckons is the most pro bono publico gent in the Southwest. He's out to do anythin' from fight to fiddle at a dance, so's it's a public play.
"An' then his idees about his dooties is wide. He jest scouts far an' near, an' don't pay no more heed to distance an' fatigue than a steer does to cobwebs.
"'A offishul," says Jack, 'who don't diffuse himse'f 'round none, an' confines his endeavors to his own bailiwick, is reestricted an' oneffectooal, an' couldn't keep down crime in a village of prairie- dogs.' An' then he'd cinch on his saddle, an' mebby go curvin' off as far north as the Flint Hills, or east to the Turkey-track.