e ef I did."

Jud Shelby, while admitting the excellence of the steer, resolutely
confined himself to open admiration of the landscape, to the end
that the entire picture receive its meed of praise.

"That piece of range," he declared, "is a dead ringer for Dead Hoss
Valley. Same grass, same lay of land, same old Whipperwill Creek
skallyhootin' in and out of them motts of timber. Them buzzards on
the left is circlin' 'round over Sam Kildrake's old paint hoss that
killed hisself over-drinkin' on a hot day. You can't see the hoss
for that mott of ellums on the creek, but he's thar. Anybody that
was goin' to look for Dead Hoss Valley and come across this picture,
why, he'd just light off'n his bronco and hunt a place to camp."

Skinny Rogers, wedded to comedy, conceived a complimentary little
piece of acting that never failed to make an impression. Edging
quite near to the picture, he would suddenly, at favourable moments
emit a piercing and awful "Yi-yi!" leap high and away, coming
down with a great stamp of heels and whirring of rowels upon the
stone-flagged floor.

"Jeeming Cristopher!"--so ran his lines--"thought that rattler was a
gin-u-ine one. Ding baste my skin if I didn't. Seemed to me I heard
him rattle. Look at the blamed, unconverted insect a-layin' under
that pear. Little more, and somebody would a-been snake-bit."

With these artful dodges, contributed by Lonney's faithful coterie,
with the sonorous Kinney perpetually sounding the picture's merits,
and with the solvent prestige of the pioneer Briscoe covering it
like a precious varnish, it seemed that the San Saba country could
not fail to add a reputation as an art centre to its well-known
superiority in steer-roping contests and achievements with the
precarious busted flush. Thus was created for the picture an
atmosphere, due rather to externals than to the artist's brush, but
through it the people seemed to gaze with more of admiration. There
was a magic in the name of Briscoe that counted high against faulty
technique and crude colouring. The old Indian fighter and wolf
slayer would have smiled grimly in his happy hunting grounds had he
known that his dilettante ghost was thus figuring as an art patron
two generations after his uninspired existence.

Came the day when the Senate was expected to pass the bill of
Senator Mullens appropriating two thousand dollars for the purchase
of the picture. The gallery of the Senate chamber was early
preempted