A short time after supper, Tenacious Gripe appeared with the mayor of the city, who wished to make the acquaintance of the Professor. The two august personages bowed to each other. It was the happiest moment in their respective lives, they declared. An invitation was extended us to delay our departure another day and try quail shooting. The citizens said the birds were unusually abundant, the previous winter having been mild and the summer long enough for two separate broods to be hatched, and the brush and river banks were swarming with them. As we were about to abandon the birds of the West and seek an acquaintance with its beasts, we decided, after a brief consultation, to accept the invitation and remain another day.
Among the persons present in the crowded office of the hotel, was a man from the southwestern part of the state who had lately been interested in a trial before the celebrated Judge Lynch. Sachem interviewed him, and reports his statement of the occurrence in the log book, as follows:
A stranger played me fur a fool,
An' threw the high, low, jack,
An' sold me the wuss piece of mule
That ever humped a back.
But that wer fair; I don't complain,
That I got beat in trade;
I don't sour on a fellow's gain,
When sich is honest made.
But wust wer this, he stole the mule,
An' I were bilked complete;
Such thieves, we hossmen makes a rule
To lift 'em from their feet.
We started arter that 'ere pup,
An' took the judge along,
For fear, with all our dander up,
We might do somethin' wrong.
We caught him under twenty miles,
An tried him under trees;
The judge he passed around the "smiles,"
As sort o' jury fees.
"Pris'ner," says judge, "now say your say,
An' make it short an' sweet,
An', while yer at it, kneel and pray,
For Death yer can not cheat.
No man shall hang, by this 'ere court,
Exceptin' on the square;
There's time fur speech, if so it's short,
But none to chew or swear."
JUDGE LYNCH—HIS COURT.
JUDGE AND JURY. SHERIFF. ATTORNEY. LOAFER. CLERK. DEPUTY SHERIFF.
An' then the thievin' rascal cursed,
An' threw his life away,
He said, "Just pony out your worst,
Your best would be foul play."
Then judge he frowned an awful frown,
An' snapped this sentence short,
"Jones, twitch the rope, an' write this down,
Hung for contempt of court!"
Sharp 8 next morning saw us on the road leading east of town, the two dogs with us, and a young one additional, the property of a resident sportsman. Our last acquisition joined us on the run, and kept on it all day, going over the ground with the speed of a greyhound, his fine nose, however, giving him better success than his reckless pace would have indicated.
Three miles from town, or half way between it and Tecumseh, our party left the wagon, with direction for it to follow the road, while we scouted along on a parallel, following the river bank.
The Kaw stretched eastward, broad and shallow, with numerous sand bars, and along its edges grew the scarlet sumach and some stunted bushes, and between these and the corn a high, coarse bottom grass, with intervals at every hundred yards or so apart of a shorter variety, like that on a poor prairie. Among the bushes, there was no grass whatever, and yet the birds seemed indifferently to frequent one spot equally with another.