MILLING WITH THE NIGHT HERD 



Chinese laundry, dodge up the alley by the blacksmith 

 shop, and now enter the doors of the lady milliner. 

 Up the alley follows the steer; out of another alley 

 pours the crowd. Buckskin-clothed scouts, cowboys, 

 fringe-skirted cowgirls and whiskery old-timers peek 

 round corners, from behind barrels, and from windows 

 and doorways. Slam go doors, and furtive faces dis- 

 appear again, surging in the opposite direction as the 

 bovine reappears and changes his course. 



One old-timer, minding his own business, is comfort- 

 ably seated smoking his piece of pipe in peace, on the 

 veranda of the Inn, entirely unconscious of the steer's 

 debut, is picked up bodily, chair and all. Fortunately 

 the steer reaches low enough to catch the chair first, 

 depositing the occupant some yards away. He runs 

 like a hothead while the steer, with the chair dangling 

 by the rungs on one horn, puts after him. A steer is 

 no respecter of persons, and I have come to the conclu- 

 sion has no conscience. 



Great Scott he's following his victim into the big, 

 empty dance hall. Crash! he's through the partly 

 opened door, and is putting on by himself one of the 

 fastest "grizzliest shimmy-bear" effects ever seen in 

 Pendleton — as graceful as a hog on ice — for you see 

 by his reflection the floor was waxed to a finish. It 

 was all funny enough Rattlesnake Bill said to make a 

 jackrabbit jump in the air and spit in the face of a bull- 

 dog. At last he's back in "Main Street" where the feel 

 of terra firma seemed but to increase the virility and 

 fighting vim of this "onery beef-critter." 



This steer was apparently not chosen for his lamb- 

 like qualities, but rather because he had been taken 

 from the Round-Up herd of wild Laredo steers, and 

 sold for butcher meat on account of his proclivity to 



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