In Cowboy Land. 419 



and an " opera house," was overwhelmed by early dis- 

 aster. The third day of its life a whirlwind came along 

 and took off the opera house and half the saloons ; and 

 the following evening lawless men nearly finished the 

 work of the elements. The riders of a huge trail-outfit 

 from Texas, to their glad surprise discovered the town and 

 abandoned themselves to a night of roaring and lethal 

 carousal. Next morning the city authorities were lament- 

 ing, with oaths of bitter rage, that " them hell-and-twenty 

 Flying A cowpunchers had cut the court-house up into 

 pants." It was true. The cowboys were in need of shaps, 

 and with an admirable mixture of adventurousness, fru- 

 gality, and ready adaptability to circumstances, had made 

 substitutes therefor in the shape of canvas overalls, cut 

 from the roof and walls of the shaky temple of justice. 



One of my valued friends in the mountains, and one 

 of the best hunters with whom I ever travelled, was a man 

 who had a peculiarly light-hearted way of looking at con- 

 ventional social obligations. Though in some ways a true 

 backwoods Donatello, he was a man of much shrewdness 

 and of great courage and resolution. Moreover, he pos- 

 sessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to 

 tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell 

 them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless 

 for very weighty reasons. He was pre-eminently a phi- 

 losopher, of a happy, sceptical turn of mind. He had no 

 prejudices. He never looked down, as so many hard 

 characters do, upon a person possessing a different code 

 of ethics. His attitude was one of broad, genial tolerance. 

 He saw nothing out of the way in the fact that he had 



