As I was anxious to get back to Kansas to see my wife and mother, Hollicott immediately gathered eight hundred fat shipping steers and started me.
I arrived in Caldwell September the first, and after shipping the herd, Mr. Beals ordered me to take the outfit back to the Panhandle and get another drove. This of course didn't suit, as I had only been at home a few days. But then what could I do? I hated to give up a good job, with no prospects of making a living by remaining in town.
I finally concluded to obey orders, so started the men and horses up the Territory line, while I and Sprague went to town with the wagon to load it with chuck. Mr. Beals had taken the train the day before to be absent quite a while. After getting the wagon loaded and ready to start, I suddenly swore off cow-punching and turned everything over to Mr. Sprague, who bossed the outfit back to the Panhandle.
The next day I rented a vacant room on Main street and, rolling up my sleeves and putting on a pair of suspenders, the first I had ever worn, started out as a merchant—on a six-bit scale. Thus one cow-puncher takes a sensible tumble and drops out of the ranks.
Now, dear reader in bidding you adieu, will say: should you not be pleased with the substance of this book, I've got nothing to say in defence, as I gave you the best I had in my little shop, but before you criticise it from a literary standpoint, bear in mind that the writer had fits until he was ten years of age, and hasn't fully recovered from the effects.
FINIS.
Transcriber Notes
Minor obvious spelling and punctuation errors have been corrected.
Words with various spellings interchangeably used in the book have been retained as written.