louds to flinders.
If this blue-eyed darlin' kicks at you, you die."

Star-dust on his chaps and saddle,
Scornful still of jar and jolt,
He'll come back sometime a-straddle
Of a bald-faced thunderbolt;
And the thin-skinned generation
Of that dim and distant day
Sure will stare with admiration
When they hear old Boastful say:
"I was first, as old raw-hiders all confest,
I'm the last of all rough riders, and the best.
Huh! you soft and dainty floaters
With your aeroplanes and motors,
Huh! are you the greatgrandchildren of the West?"
_From recitation, original, by Charles Badger Clark, Jr._

THE TEXAS COWBOY AND THE MEXICAN GREASER

I THINK we can all remember when a Greaser hadn't no show
In Palo Pinto particular,--it ain't very long ago;
A powerful feelin' of hatred ag'in the whole Greaser race
That murdered bold Crockett and Bowie pervaded all in the place.
Why, the boys would draw on a Greaser as quick as they would on a
steer;
They was shot down without warnin' often, in the memory of many here.
One day the bark of pistols was heard ringin' out in the air,
And a Greaser, chased by some ranchmen, tore round here into the
square.
I don't know what he's committed,--'tain't likely anyone knew,--
But I wouldn't bet a check on the issue; if you knew the gang, neither
would you.
Breathless and bleeding, the Greaser fell down by the side of the
wall;
And a man sprang out before him,--a man both strong and tall,--
By his clothes I should say a cowboy,--a stranger in town, I think,--
With his pistol he waved back the gang, who was wild with rage and
drink.
"I warn ye, get back!" he said, "or I'll blow your heads in two!
A dozen on one poor creature, and him wounded and bleeding, too!"
The gang stood back for a minute; then up spoke Poker Bill:
"Young man, yer a stranger, I reckon. We don't wish yer any ill;
But come out of the range of the Greaser, or, as sure as I live,
you'll croak;"
And he drew a bead on the stranger. I'll tell yer it wa'n't no joke.
But the stranger moven' no muscle as he looked in the bore of Bill's
gun;
He hadn't no thought to stir, sir; he hadn't no thought to run;
But he spoke out cool and quiet, "I might live for a thousand year
And not die a