y. A big tree was soon
found, a fire started, and after patronizing the whisky bottle,
and sampling the cigars, we turned in for the night. Towards
morning I was awakened by a noise, and found that Dunlap, my partner,
was on fire. I woke him up and rushed him down into the river,
only a distance of about fifty feet, and he came out looking like
the worst tramp that ever was on the road. His coat was burned
off, and also one leg of his pantaloons, so he walked to Hickman
and purchased new clothes, and, boarding the first boat down,
induced the Captain to stop for me; and we returned to Memphis $900
ahead, but sadder and wiser men.

THE GREEN COW-BOY.

I always had a great love for horse-flesh, and it is many a dollar
I have won and lost on the turf. In flush times, just after the
war, I was taking a lot of race-horses over to Mobile, and had got
them all nicely quartered on the boat and was taking a smoke on
the boiler-deck, when a stranger approached me. "Are you the
gentleman who brought those horses over from New Orleans?"

"Yes, sir."

"There is one that I would like to buy."

"And that one?"

"The pacing horse."

"Can't sell him; need him in the races that I'm giving every week."

At supper we sat together, and after supper we chatted for a long
time. My partner sat near by, and knew what I was nursing him for.
He let me know that he was from Texas, and towards 10 o'clock I
asked him if he played euchre. He loved the game very much, and
played a great deal. "Suppose we amuse ourselves, if we can find
a deck of cards," I suggested; and we sat down, playing single-
handed until most of the passengers had retired. When I took out
my watch at 1 o'clock, a rough looking fellow, unshaven and long-
haired, with a huge Buffalo Bill hat on his head, came up to the
table and said he was from Texas, and had never been in this part
of the country before.

"What part of Texas are you from?" asked my friend, who appeared
to be taken with the green country manners of the Texan.

"Wall, I live on a ranch twenty-five odd miles from El Paso."

"What brought you so far away from home?"

"Me and my pap came over with cattle, sir, and they's all over in
pens in New Orleans. I reckoned as how we'd lose 'em all coming
across the sea, and pap was skeered, so he never went to bed till
we got them steers in the pens. I didn't want to go with pap when
he started with them thar steers; but pap is the oldest, and