ud, though we hadn't the least doubt that half of Washington was in
tears at his departure for the West.

The sudden flare of a torch betrayed his moist eyes as he told us how he
loved us. And I'm sure he meant it. He said, with that Western drawl of
his: "Boys, while I was back there trying to do a little something for
you in Congress, I heard a lot of swell bands; but I didn't hear any
such music as this little old band of ours has made to-night!" The
unintentional humor somehow didn't make you want to laugh at all.

We're all riding with his outfit; and next year we're going to send
Charlie back East again. May we all die sheepmen if we don't--and that's
the limit in Montana!

Talking about sheepmen, reminds me of Joe, the big bronco-buster, and
his _mot_. I was doing the town with Joe, and he was carefully educating
me in the Western mysteries. He told me all about "day-wranglers" and
"night-hawks" and "war-bags" and "round-ups"; showed me how to tie a
"bull-noose" and a "sheep-shank" and a "Mexican hacamore"; put me onto
the twist-of-the-wrist and the quick arm-thrust that puts half-hitches
'round a steer's legs; showed me how a cowboy makes dance music with a
broom and a mouth-harp--and many other wonderful feats, none of which I
can myself perform.

I wanted to feel the mettle of the big typical fellow, and so I said
playfully: "Say, Joe, come to confession--you're a sheepman, now aren't
you?"

He clanked down a glass of long-range liquid, and glared down at me with
a monitory forefinger pointing straight between my eyes: "Now you look
here, Shorty," he drawled; "you're a friend of mine, and whatever you
say _goes_, as long as I ain't all caved in! But you cut that out, and
don't you say that out loud again, or you and me'll be having to scrap
the whole outfit!"

He resumed his glass. I told him, still playfully, that a lot of mighty
good poetry had been written about sheep and sheepmen and crooks and
lambs and things like that, and that I considered my question
complimentary.

"You're talkin' about sheepmen in the old country, Shorty," he drawled.
"There ain't any cattle ranges there, you know. Do you know the
difference between a sheepman in Scotland, say, and in Montana?"

I did not.

"Well," he proceeded, "over in Scotland when a feller sees a sheepman
coming down the road with his sheep, he says: 'Behold the gentle
shepherd with his fleecy flock!' That's poetry. Now in Montana, that
same feller s