at you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't me
no more'n I'm you. This was a kind of sober-minded concern; it was
a thoughtful sort of a ranch, where everybody went about his work
quiet. I guess it was because the boys was mostly old-timers,
given to arguing about why was this and how come that. Argue!
Caesar! It was a regular debating society. Wind-river Smith
picked up a book in the old man's room that told about the Injuns
bein' Jews 'way back before the big high-water, and how one gang of
'em took to the prairie and the other gang to the bad clothes
business. Well, he and Chawley Tawmson--'member Chawley and his
tooth? And you'd have time to tail-down and burn a steer before
Chawley got the next word out--well, they got arguin' about whether
this was so, or whether it weren't so. Smithy was for the book,
havin' read it, and Chawley scorned it. The argument lasted a
month, and as neither one of 'em knew anything about an Injun,
except what you can gather from looking at him over a rifle sight,
and as the only Jew either one of 'em ever said two words to was
the one that sold Windriver a hat that melted in the first
rain-storm, and then him and Chawley went to town and made the
Hebrew eat what was left of the hat, after refunding the price, you
can imagine what a contribution to history I listened to. That's
the kind of place the Ellis ranch was, and a nice old farm she was,
too.

"I'd been working there about three months, when along come a man
that looked like old man Trouble's only son. Of all the sorrowful
faces you ever see, his was the longest and thinnest. It made any
other human countenance I ever see look like a nigger-minstrel show.

[Illustration: Made any other human countenance I ever see look
like a nigger-minstrel show.]

"We was short-handed, as the old man had begun to put up hay and
work some of the stock in corrals for the winter, so we took our
new brother on. His name was Ezekiel George Washington
Scraggs--tuneful number for a cow-outfit!--and his name didn't come
anywhere near doin' him justice at that. Ezekiel knew his biz and
turned in a day's work right straight along, but when you'd say,
'Nice day, Scraggs?' he'd heave such a sigh you could feel the
draft all the way acrost the bull-pen, and only shake his head.

"Up to this time Wind-river had enjoyed a cinch on the mournful
act. He'd had a girl sometime durin' the Mexican war, and she'd
borrowed Smith's roll and skipped w