thanks that it is but a transition, and not a finality.

Sometimes readers inquire, Did I know the Virginian? As well, I hope,
as a father should know his son. And sometimes it is asked, Was such and
such a thing true? Now to this I have the best answer in the world.
Once a cowpuncher listened patiently while I read him a manuscript.
It concerned an event upon an Indian reservation. "Was that the Crow
reservation?" he inquired at the finish. I told him that it was no
real reservation and no real event; and his face expressed displeasure.
"Why," he demanded, "do you waste your time writing what never happened,
when you know so many things that did happen?"

And I could no more help telling him that this was the highest
compliment ever paid me than I have been able to help telling you about
it here!

CHARLESTON, S.C., March 31st, 1902

THE VIRGINIAN

I. ENTER THE MAN

Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to
the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was.
I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, and
inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging,
huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them
would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time
to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might
take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station
platform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late, and starving for
entertainment. The pony in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Have
you seen a skilful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessant
eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the
rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or
he might affect earnest conversation with a bystander: it was bootless.
The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was
thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon
the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse-expression made the
matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he
was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded in
that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in a
flash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playful
fish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it)
ro