The Last of the Plainsmen 



our way West, as we met ranchers, prospectors and 

 cowboys. But those few men I had fortunately met, 

 who really knew Jones, more than overbalanced the 

 doubt and ridicule cast upon him. I recalled a 

 scarred old veteran of the plains, who had talked to 

 me in true Western bluntness: 



&quot; Say, young feller, I heerd yer couldn t git acrost 

 the canon fer the deep snow on the north rim. Wai, 

 ye re lucky. Now, yer hit the trail fer New York, 

 an keep goin ! Don t ever tackle the desert, spe 

 cially with them Mormons. They ve got water on 

 the brain, wusser n religion. It s two hundred an 

 fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones range, an only 

 two drinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo 

 Jones. I knowed him way back in the seventies, when 

 he was doin them ropin stunts thet made him famous 

 as the preserver of the American bison. I know 

 about that crazy trip of his n to the Barren Lands, 

 after musk-ox. An I reckon I kin guess what he ll 

 do over there in the Siwash. He ll rope cougars 

 sure he will an* watch em jump. Jones would rope 

 the devil, an tie him down if the lasso didn t burn. 

 Oh! he s hell on ropin things. An he s wusser n 

 hell on men, an bosses, an dogs.&quot; 



All that my well-meaning friend suggested made 

 me, of course, only the more eager to go wkh Jones. 

 Where I had once been interested in the old buffalo 



