V Texas Jack 137 



Texas Jack — they had just been burnt off the 

 prairies and were thirsty — they were both attired 

 in fringed buckskin trousers and black velveteen 

 shooting jackets of the real old keeper cut — I often 

 wondered what became of those said jackets, I never 

 saw them again. Were they taken off in a little 

 difficulty and " smushed " by the gentlemanly 

 barman, or how ? Do tell ! — Of the many marvel- 

 lous deeds done by Buffalo Bill, it is not for me 

 to write ; are they not all related, more or less badly, 

 in the dim novels beloved by western men ? I 

 have only to say that he got his title when killing 

 buffalo for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, when it 

 was his custom to bring in a buffalo's tongue for 

 every cartridge which he took out with him. 



' Come forth ! O Texas Jack, known in the " sorf 

 south " before the war as J. Mahondro, Esq. ; and 

 would that a better hand than mine were here to 

 paint your portrait ! If Buffalo Bill belongs to the 

 school of Charles I., pale, large eyed, and dreamy, 

 Jack, all life, and blood, and fire, blazing with sup- 

 pressed poetry, is Elizabethan to the back bone ! 

 He too is an eminently handsome man, and the 

 sight of him in his fringed hunting buckskins, short 

 hunting shirt decorated with patches of red and blue 

 stained leather, pair of delicate white moccasins 

 embroidered by the hand of some aesthetic and 

 loving squaw, with his short, bright brown curls 

 covered by a velvet cap with a broad gold band 

 around it, would play the very mischief with many 



