"Keep your two-bits," said the puncher. "This is on me. You're goin' to furnish the chaser, Go to it and cinch up them there 'saddest.'"
"Bein' just two-bits this side of bein' a socialist, I guess I'll keep me change. I ain't a drinkin' man—regular, but I never was scared of eatin'."
Sundown gazed about the dingy room. Like most poets, he was not averse to an audience, and like most poets he was quite willing that such audience should help defray his incidental expenses—indirectly, of course. Prospects were pretty thin just then. Two Mexican herders loafed at the other end of the bar. They appeared anything but susceptible to the blandishments of Euterpe. Sundown gazed at the ceiling, which was fly-specked and uninspiring,
"Turn her loose!" said the puncher, winking at the bartender.
Sundown folded his long arms and tilted one lean shoulder as though defying the elements to blast him where he stood:—
"Lives there a gent who has not heard,
Before he died, the saddest word?
"'What word is that?' the maiden cried;
'I'd like to hear it before I died.'
"'Then come with me,' her father said,
As to the stockyards her he led;
"Where layin' on the ground so low
She seen a tired and weary Bo.
"But when he seen her standin' 'round,
He riz up from the cold, cold ground.