looked at the traveller, and
running a pistol into his ear, observed, "You'll take hash.") I was
thinking of this and wondering what would happen to me. So I took the
step.

"Wants frogs' legs, does he?" shouted Colonel Cyrus Jones. He fixed
his eye upon me, and it narrowed to a slit. "Too many brain workers
breakfasting before yu' came in, professor," said he. "Missionary ate
the last leg off me just now. Brown the wheat!" he commanded, through
the hole to the cook, for some one had ordered hot cakes.

"I'll have fried aiggs," said the Virginian. "Cooked both sides."

"White wings!" sang the colonel through the hole. "Let 'em fly up and
down."

"Coffee an' no milk," said the Virginian.

"Draw one in the dark!" the colonel roared.

"And beefsteak, rare."

"One slaughter in the pan, and let the blood drip!"

"I should like a glass of water, please," said I. The colonel threw me a
look of pity.

"One Missouri and ice for the professor!" he said.

"That fello's a right live man," commented the Virginian. But he seemed
thoughtful. Presently he inquired, "Yu' say he was a foreigner, an'
learned fancy cookin' to New Yawk?"

That was this cow-puncher's way. Scarcely ever would he let drop a thing
new to him until he had got from you your whole information about it.
So I told him the history of Lorenzo Delmonico and his pioneer work, as
much as I knew, and the Southerner listened intently.

"Mighty inter-estin'," he said--"mighty. He could just take little
old o'rn'ry frawgs, and dandy 'em up to suit the bloods. Mighty
inter-estin'. I expaict, though, his cookin' would give an outraiged
stomach to a plain-raised man."

"If you want to follow it up," said I, by way of a sudden experiment,
"Miss Molly Wood might have some book about French dishes."

But the Virginian did not turn a hair. "I reckon she wouldn't," he
answered. "She was raised in Vermont. They don't bother overly about
their eatin' up in Vermont. Hyeh's what Miss Wood recommended the las'
time I was seein' her," the cow-puncher added, bringing Kenilworth from
his pocket. "Right fine story. That Queen Elizabeth must have cert'nly
been a competent woman."

"She was," said I. But talk came to an end here. A dusty crew, most
evidently from the plains, now entered and drifted to a table; and each
man of them gave the Virginian about a quarter of a slouchy nod. His
greeting to them was very serene. Only, Kenilworth went back into his
pocket, and he br