In Cowboy Land 259 



standing that they needed an apology as he 

 would have been incapable of being guilty 

 of mere vulgar boastfulness. He did .not 

 often allude to his past career at all. When 

 he did, he recited its incidents perfectly nat- 

 urally and simply, as events, without any ref- 

 erence to or regard for their ethical signifi- 

 cance. It was this quality which made him 

 at times a specially pleasant companion, and 

 always an agreeable narrator. The point of 

 his story, or what seemed to him the point, 

 was rarely that which struck me. It was the 

 incidental sidelights the story threw upon his 

 own nature and the somewhat lurid surround- 

 ings amid which he had moved. 



On one occasion when we were out to- 

 gether we killed a bear, and after skinning 

 it, took a bath in a lake. I noticed he had 

 a scar on the side of his foot and asked him 

 how he got it, to which he responded, with 

 indifference : 



"Oh, that? Why, a man shootin' at me to 

 make me dance, that was all." 



I expressed some curiosity in the matter, 

 and he went on : 



"Well, the way of it was this : It was when 

 I was keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and 

 there was a man there by the name of Fowler, 



