"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."
"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito defiantly.
"Well, there'll be hell a-popping whenever they do come together, and it——"
"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc Gilpen will get left right there."
The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company. She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and "passed" good-naturedly.
"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there to paint the town,[24] and got his tank full, and tried to ride his horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raging lion, I am! I'm a hell-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who had pocketed his chips,[25] and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked him off his horse with the butt-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be —— to —— if I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you, Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."
"That's what," assented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26] ain't around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you need it."
Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "muffins," honey, coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but newly come from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage of the alternative which was offered to them—you can wait until the "aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have finished. The title, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher," by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.
I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But "gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this—any one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so, of learning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these duties—will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than unwilling labour from his men.
Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman—a fine gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ——! he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far from taking a liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of it by self-assertion.