. I suppose it is natural for every country boy to be
fascinated with some other occupation than the one to which he is
bred. In my early teens, I always thought I should like either to
drive six horses to a stage or clerk in a store, and if I could have
attained either of those lofty heights, at that age, I would have
asked no more. So my father, rather than see me follow in the
footsteps of my older brothers, secured me a situation in a village
store some twenty miles distant. The storekeeper was a fellow
countryman of my father--from the same county in Ireland, in fact--and
I was duly elated on getting away from home to the life of the
village.

But my elation was short-lived. I was to receive no wages for the
first six months. My father counseled the merchant to work me hard,
and, if possible, cure me of the "foolish notion," as he termed it.
The storekeeper cured me. The first week I was with him he kept me in
a back warehouse shelling corn. The second week started out no better.
I was given a shovel and put on the street to work out the poll-tax,
not only of the merchant but of two other clerks in the store. Here
was two weeks' work in sight, but the third morning I took breakfast
at home. My mercantile career had ended, and forthwith I took to the
range as a preacher's son takes to vice. By the time I was twenty
there was no better cow-hand in the entire country. I could, besides,
speak Spanish and play the fiddle, and thought nothing of riding
thirty miles to a dance. The vagabond temperament of the range I
easily assimilated.

Christmas in the South is always a season of festivity, and the magnet
of mother and home yearly drew us to the family hearthstone. There we
brothers met and exchanged stories of our experiences. But one year
both my brothers brought home a new experience. They had been up the
trail, and the wondrous stories they told about the northern country
set my blood on fire. Until then I thought I had had adventures, but
mine paled into insignificance beside theirs. The following summer, my
eldest brother, Robert, himself was to boss a herd up the trail, and I
pleaded with him to give me a berth, but he refused me, saying: "No,
Tommy; the trail is one place where a foreman can have no favorites.
Hardship and privation must be met, and the men must throw themselves
equally into the collar. I don't doubt but you're a good hand; still
the fact that you're my brother might cause other boys to think