"I was drivin' a bunch of strays down through that Mormon country one time," explained Buck Buchanan; "that's where I got the idee. That's a great country, ain't it, Brig? Lots of houses, too. I remember I stopped one time at a street crossin' and they was houses on all four corners. They was a lot of kids playin' around, and I asked one of 'em whose houses they were, and he says: 'My father's.'
"'How comes yore father to have so many houses?' I says. 'Does he rent 'em?'
"'No, sir,' the kid says, 'he lives in 'em. Don't you know him? He's the bishop!'"
A roar of laughter followed this brutal innuendo, but Brigham was not set back. His mind had become accustomed to all such jests.
"Aw, you're jealous," he grunted, and let the Gentiles rage until, as the talk ran on, he gradually assumed the lead.
"That's one thing you'll never find around a Mormon town," he began, still speaking with philosophical calm; "you'll never find no Texican. Of course, a Mormon has to work, and that bars most of 'em at the start; but, I dunno, seems like the first settlers took a prejudice ag'inst 'em. I remember my old man tellin' how it come that way—course they must be mistaken, but the Mormons think a Texan ain't got no sense.
"It seems the Mormons was the first folks to settle along the Heely, and my grandpaw was one of the leaders—he killed a lot of Injuns, believe me! But one day when he was gittin' kinder old and feeble-like, he got a notion in his head that he wanted a squirrel-skin, and so he called in my father and said:
"'Son, you take yore rifle and go out and git me a gray squirrel; and be careful not to shoot 'im in the head, because I want the brains to tan the skin with.'
"So my father he went up in the pines and hunted around; but the only squirrel he could find was stickin' his head over the limb, and rather than not git nothin' he shot him anyhow. Well, he brought him back to the old man and he said to 'im:
"'I'm mighty sorry, Dad; the squirrels was awful scarce, and rather than not git any I had to shoot this one through the head.'