THE OHIO DISTRICT 227 



gave me a wink, which I interpreted to mean, " hear 

 him : he's a knowing one." " Look here, boss, we're a 

 couple of poor ranchmen down on our luck. Lend us 

 a couple of dollars." 



I hesitated a moment, but I tugged out a couple of 

 dollars, and threw them to them, for I would not give 

 them the advantage of coming close enough to take them. 

 " Thank you for your politeness," said the fellow as he 

 stooped to pick them up. " Now my mate ain't got a 

 six-shooter. Suppose you lend him yours." 



This impudent proposal brought my blood up in an 

 instant. I whipped out my six-shooter, exclaiming, " To 

 the devil with you, you scamps ! If you are not off in 

 an instant, I will shoot the pair of you." 



" Oh, I see you understand the joke," said the 

 spokesman, and the two rascals went off laughing. I 

 never felt more wicked in my life, and it is a wonder 

 that I did not shoot them. Whatever the consequences, 

 I would never have suffered myself to be disarmed by 

 such a brace of rogues. 



The American tramp is a ticklish scoundrel to deal 

 with. A few years later a gentleman whom I knew well, 

 residing in Spark Street, Ottawa almost as noted a 

 thoroughfare in that city as Regent Street in London 

 was stuck up by a tramp in his shop, and coerced 

 into giving him alms. This fellow frightened several 

 shopkeepers into " forking out," but he met his match 

 in the outskirts of the town. There he called on a 

 young Yankee woman who happened to be alone in 

 the house engaged in ironing linen. She knocked 

 Mr. Tramp down with a hot iron, and according to 

 the policeman who arrested him, "left a remarkably 

 good trade-mark on his back to show the devil when he 

 went home." In plainer terms, she ironed him out. 



The professional tramp is everywhere an impudent 

 brute, but in the States he surpasses his brethren of 

 Europe by an immeasurable amount of daring insolence. 



