n' I might add by
way of a gratootity in lines of proof, the finish of his boy, Bloojacket,
I inclines to string my chips with Colonel Sterett.'

"'Give us the details concernin' this Hardrobe,' says Doc Peets. 'For
myse'f, I'm prone an' eager to add to my information touchin' Injuns at
every openin'.'

"As Enright an' the rest makes expression sim'lar, I proceeds to
onbuckle. I don't claim much for the tale neither. Still, I wouldn't
copper it none for it's the trooth, an' the trooth should allers be
played 'open' every time. I'll tell you-all this Hardrobe story as I
onfolds it to them."

It was here my friend began looking about with a vaguely anxious eye. I
saw his need and pressed the button.

"I was aimin' to summon my black boy, Tom," he said.

When a moment later his favourite decanter appeared in the hands of one
of the bar-boys of the hostelry, who placed it on a little table at his
elbow and withdrew, the necessity for "Tom" seemed to disappear, and
recurring to Hardrobe, he went on.

"Hardrobe is a Injun--a Osage buck an' belongs to the war clan of his
tribe. He's been eddicated East an' can read in books, an' pow-wows
American mighty near as flooent as I does myse'f. An' on that last p'int
I'll take a chance that I ain't tongue-tied neither.

"Which this yere is a long time ago. Them is days when I'm young an'
lithe an' strong. I can heft a pony an' I'm six foot two in my
moccasins. No, I ain't so tall by three inches now; old age shortens a
gent up a whole lot.

"My range is on the south bank of Red River--over on the Texas side.
Across on the no'th is the Nation--what map folks call the 'Injun
Territory.' In them epocks we experiences Injuns free an' frequent, as
our drives takes us across the Nation from south to no'th the widest way.
We works over the old Jones an' Plummer trail, which thoroughfare I
alloodes to once or twice before. I drives cattle over it an' I freights
over it,--me an' my eight-mule team. An' I shorely knows where all the
grass an' wood an' water is from the Red River to the Flint Hills.

"Speakin' of the Jones an' Plummer trail, I once hears a dance-hall girl
who volunteers some songs over in a Tucson hurdygurdy, an' that maiden
sort o' dims my sights some. First, she gives us _The Dying Ranger_, the
same bein' enough of itse'f to start a sob or two; speshul when folks is,
as Colonel Sterett says, 'a leetle drinkin'.' Then when the public
clamours for more