He says it means, "Eating-house woman chasing—Jesse galloping—home dead finish."
I dare not accuse my dear man of being narrow-minded. I have no doubt that he is quite justified in his intense antipathy to niggers, dagos, and chinks—indeed, he will not allow my Chinese servant on the ranch. But if I wished to uncork a choice vintage of stories, I alluded to his prejudice against the word "grizzly" as applied to his pet bear.
"Now that's whar yo're dead wrong." He threw a log of cedar upon our camp altar, making fresh incense to the wild gods. "The landlord's a silver-tip, fat as butter. Down in the low country, whar feed is mean, and Britishers around, the b'ars is poor, and called grizzlies. I'd be shamed to have a grizzly on my ranch. Come to think, though, Kate, the landlord was a sure-enough grizzly three years back. He'd had misfortunes."
"Tell me." As he stirred the fire, gathering his thoughts, I watched the cedar sparks, a very torchlight procession of fairies flowing upward into the darkness overhead.
"Wall, you see, he and the landlady was always around same as you and me, but not together. No. Being respectable b'ars they'd feed at opposite ends of the pasture."
"But don't the married couples live together?"
"None. They feels it ain't quite modest to make a show of their marriage. You see, Kate, after all, these b'ars is not like us but sort of foreigners. Mother gets kind of secluded when there's cubs, 'cause father's so careless and eats 'em."
"How disgusting!"
"I dunno. Time I speak of, their three young lady b'ars was married somewheres up in the black pines, whar it takes say fifty square miles to feed one silver-tip—and no tourists to help out in times of famine. That country was gettin' over-stocked, with a high protective tariff agin cañon b'ars.