was pink and his hair
was sandy, and that gave you the idea. Sheep man?--he wasn't more than
a lamb man, anyhow--a little thing with his neck involved in a yellow
silk handkerchief, and shoes tied up in bowknots.

"'Afternoon!' says I to him. 'You now ride with a equestrian who is
commonly called Dead-Moral-Certainty Judson, on account of the way I
shoot. When I want a stranger to know me I always introduce myself
before the draw, for I never did like to shake hands with ghosts.'

"'Ah,' says he, just like that--'Ah, I'm glad to know you, Mr. Judson.
I'm Jackson Bird, from over at Mired Mule Ranch.'

"Just then one of my eyes saw a roadrunner skipping down the hill with
a young tarantula in his bill, and the other eye noticed a rabbit-hawk
sitting on a dead limb in a water-elm. I popped over one after the
other with my forty-five, just to show him. 'Two out of three,' says
I. 'Birds just naturally seem to draw my fire wherever I go.'

"'Nice shooting,' says the sheep man, without a flutter. 'But don't
you sometimes ever miss the third shot? Elegant fine rain that was
last week for the young grass, Mr. Judson?' says he.

"'Willie,' says I, riding over close to his palfrey, 'your infatuated
parents may have denounced you by the name of Jackson, but you sure
moulted into a twittering Willie--let us slough off this here analysis
of rain and the elements, and get down to talk that is outside the
vocabulary of parrots. That is a bad habit you have got of riding with
young ladies over at Pimienta. I've known birds,' says I, 'to be
served on toast for less than that. Miss Willella,' says I, 'don't
ever want any nest made out of sheep's wool by a tomtit of the
Jacksonian branch of ornithology. Now, are you going to quit, or do
you wish for to gallop up against this Dead-Moral-Certainty attachment
to my name, which is good for two hyphens and at least one set of
funeral obsequies?'

"Jackson Bird flushed up some, and then he laughed.

"'Why, Mr. Judson,' says he, 'you've got the wrong idea. I've called
on Miss Learight a few times; but not for the purpose you imagine. My
object is purely a gastronomical one.'

"I reached for my gun.

"'Any coyote,' says I, 'that would boast of dishonourable--'

"'Wait a minute,' says this Bird, 'till I explain. What would I do
with a wife? If you ever saw that ranch of mine! I do my own cooking
and mending. Eating--that's all the pleasure I get out of sheep
raising. Mr. Judson, did yo