peated the man, and he groaned.

By this time, as any intelligent reader will easily divine, our whole
group was in a condition of mild excitement. Several of us had resided
in Texas, and we felt that we stood at the threshold of a history,--a
history with infinite possibilities in it. For myself, I knew not how to
proceed. My position as a host forbade me to interrogate. The sorrows of
life are sacred, and my sensitiveness withheld me from thrusting myself
within the enclosure of my guest's recollections. That his experiences,
could we but be favored with a narration of them, would be
entertaining,--painfully entertaining,--I keenly realized; but how to
proceed I saw not. I remained silent.

"Yes,"--it was the stranger who broke the silence,--"I am a busted
ex-Texan!"

[Illustration: I AM A BUSTED EX-TEXAN.]

The relief that came to me at the instant was indescribable. The path
was made plain. We all felt that we were not only on the threshold of a
history, but of a narration of that history. The ladies fluttered into
position for listening. I could but see it, and so I am bound to record
that I saw Dick irreverently punch the major. It was a punch which
carried with it the significance of an exclamation. The major received
it with the face of a Spartan, but with the grunt of a Chinook chief.

"Friend," I said, "we are accustomed to beguile the evening hours with
entertaining descriptions of travels, often of personal incidents of the
haps and hazards of life; and, if it would not be disagreeable to you,
we would be vastly entertained, beyond doubt, by any narration with
which you might favor us of your Texan experiences and of the fortunes
which befell you there."

For a few moments, the silence remained unbroken, save by the crackle of
the fire and the soft movement in the great firs overhead,--a movement
which is to sound what dawn is to the day; not so much a sound as a
feathery suggestion that sound might come. It was a genial hour, and the
mood of the hour began to be felt in our own. The warmth of it evidently
penetrated the bosom of our guest. He had eaten. He was
filled,--appreciably so at least, and that happy feeling, that
comfortable sense of fulness, which characterizes the after-dinner hour,
pervaded him with its genial glow. He loosened his belt,--another
tremendous nudge from Dick,--and a look of contentment softened his
features. Whatever storm had wrecked his life, he had now passed beyond
its