eman detailed for that purpose,
they are allowed to clamber up an incline into a corral and dry or
die, as the state of their constitutions may decree. If you ever
caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt
the 750 volts of kicking that he can send though your arm seventeen
times before you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope
that he may die instead of dry.

But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched
ourselves on the bank of the nearby _charco_ after the dipping, glad
for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the earth after our
muscle-racking labours. The flock was a small one, and we finished at
three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from the _morral_ on his saddle
horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big hunk of bread and some side
bacon. Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode away to the
ranch with his force of Mexican _trabajadores_.

While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the sound of horses'
hoofs behind us. Bud's six-shooter lay in its scabbard ten feet away
from his hand. He paid not the slightest heed to the approaching
horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was so different from the
old-time custom that I marvelled. Instinctively I turned to inspect
the possible foe that menaced us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed
in black, who might have been a lawyer or a parson or an undertaker,
trotting peaceably along the road by the _arroyo_.

Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically and
sorrowfully.

"You've been away too long," said he. "You don't need to look around
any more when anybody gallops up behind you in this state, unless
something hits you in the back; and even then it's liable to be only
a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the trusts. I never
looked at that _hombre_ that rode by; but I'll bet a quart of sheep
dip that he's some double-dyed son of a popgun out rounding up
prohibition votes."

"Times have changed, Bud," said I, oracularly. "Law and order is the
rule now in the South and the Southwest."

I caught a cold gleam from Bud's pale blue eyes.

"Not that I--" I began, hastily.

"Of course you don't," said Bud warmly. "You know better. You've
lived here before. Law and order, you say? Twenty years ago we had
'em here. We only had two or three laws, such as against murder before
witnesses, and being caught stealing horses, and voting the Republican
ticket.