“So long, boys!” I waved my Stetson.
Next thing, Briggs City begun t’ slip back’ards–slow at first, then faster and faster. The hollerin’ of the bunch got sorta fadey; the deepot lights got littler and littler. Off t’ the right, a new light sprung up–it was the lamp in the sittin’-room at the Bar Y.
“Boss,” I says out loud, “they’s a little, empty rockin’-chair byside yourn t’-night. Wal, I’ll never come back this way no more ’less you’ baby gal is home at the ranch-house again t’ fill it.”
Then, I picked up my satchel and hunted the day-coach.
A-course, when I reached Chicago, the first thing I done was to take a fly at that railroad on stilts. Next, I had t’ go over and turn my lanterns on the lake. Pretty soon I was so all-fired broke-in that I could stand on a street corner without bein’ hitched. But people was a-takin’ me fer Bill Cody, and the kids had a notion to fall in behind when I walked any. So I made myself look cityfied. I got a suit–a nice, kinda brownish-reddish colour. I done my sombrero up in a newspaper and purchased a round hat, black and turrible tony. I bought me some sateen shirts,–black, too, with turn-down collars and little bits of white stripes. A white satin tie last of all, and, say! I was fixed!
Wal, after seein’ Chicago, it stands t’ reason that Noo York cain’t git a feller scairt so awful much. Anyhow, it didn’t me. The minute I got offen the train at the Grand Central, I got my boots greased and my clothes breshed; then I looked up one of them Fourth of July hitchin’-posts and had my jaw scraped and my mane cut.
“Pardner,” I says t’ the barber feller, “I want t’ rent a cheap room.”
“Look in the papers,” he advises.
’Twixt him and me, we located a place afore long, and he showed me how t’ git to it. Wal, sir, I was settled in a jiffy. The room wasn’t bigger ’n a two-spot, and the bed was one of them jack-knife kind. But I liked the looks of the shebang. The lady that run it, she almost fell over when I tole her I was a cow-punch.
“Why!” she says, “are y’ shore? You’re tall enough, but you’re a little thick-set. I thought all cow-boys was very slender.”