CHAPTER IX.
Getting Acquainted With the West—The Character of the Cow-boy—A Cow-boy’s Love Affair, Etc.
Next day I began to breathe easier as I had not witnessed any shooting scrapes, nor funerals, so I felt rather safe in walking the streets, although I was rather suspicious of anybody I met wearing a six-shooter. Nevertheless, I kept on the move, endeavoring to find where I could locate a good homestead, as that country was nearly all open and unsettled. In my wanderings I happened into Cox’s feed yard where Broncho Jack kept his horses. I entered the camp house and found Jack and Slim Jim sitting on a bench and there was every evidence to show that they had been indulging too freely in “Kelly’s Sovereign Remedy for a Sour Disposition.” They seemed very confidential in their conversation, and I could not help overhearing it. It ran about as follows:
S. J.—Jack, do you know that old nester that settled on the flats out on Crooked Creek?
B. J.—No, I don’t know him, but I heard there was a fellow out there going into farming and raising fine stock.
S. J.—Well, he’s there all right, and has two of the prettiest daughters I ever saw.
B. J.—What has that to do with you?
S. J.—It has this to do with me. I am done ranching. I am going to drop off this old broncho and will step right in between the old man’s plow handles and there I’ll stay until removed by death, or the County Sheriff.
B. J.—Have you had any introduction to those young ladies, or what is the matter with you? Have you taken leave of your senses and gone wild?
S. J.—I never had an introduction to them, but I met them at the post-office and they had a nosebag full of letters and a wheel-barrow full of papers and books. Oh, I tell you they are educated, or what would they want with all that printed stuff. I am going farming, that is what I am going to do.