W 



CHAPTER XI 



ON TO THE SIWASH 



\ &quot;Y JHO all was doin the talkin last night? &quot; 

 asked Frank next morning, when we 

 were having a late breakfast. &quot; Cause 

 I ve a joke on somebody. Jim he talks in his sleep 

 often, an last night after you did finally get settled 

 down, Jim he up in his sleep an says : Shore he s 

 windy as hell ! Shore he s windy as hell ! &quot; 



At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, 

 Jim showed extreme humiliation; but Frank s eyes 

 fairly snapped with the fun he got out of telling it. 

 The genial foreman loved a joke. The week s stay 

 at Oak, in which we all became thoroughly 

 acquainted, had presented Jim as always the same 

 quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his 

 brother cowboy, however, we had discovered in 

 addition to his fine, frank, friendly spirit, an over 

 whelming fondness for playing tricks. This boyish 

 mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached its 

 acme whenever it tended in the direction of our 

 serious leader. 



Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious 

 errand about which my curiosity was all in vain. 



191 



