IN THE OLD WEST 33 



leaves, and this in Febrarj, wagh! Our animals 

 was like to die when they see the green grass, and 

 we all sung out, " Hurraw for summer doins." 



" * " Hyar goes for meat," says I, and I jest ups 

 old Ginger at one of them singing-birds, and down 

 come the crittur elegant ; its darned head spinning 

 away from the body, but never stops singing; 

 and when I takes up the meat, I finds it stone, 

 wagh ! " Hyar's damp powder and no fire to dry 

 it," I says, quite skeared. 



" ' " Fire be dogged," says old Rube. " Hyar's 

 a hoss, as'll make fire come," and with that he 

 takes his axe and lets drive at a cotton wood. 

 Schr-u-k — goes the axe agin the tree, and out 

 comes a bit of the blade as big as my hand. We 

 looks at the animals, and thar they stood shak- 

 ing over the grass, which I'm dog-gone if it wasn't 

 stone, too. Young Sublette comes up, and he'd 

 been clerking down to the fort on Platte, so he 

 know'd something. He looks and looks, and 

 scrapes the trees with his butcher knife, and 

 snaps the grass like pipe-stems, and breaks the 

 leaves a-snappin' like Califomy shells. 



"'"What's all this, boy?" I asks. 



" * " Putrefactions," says he, looking smart ; 

 " putrefactions, or I'm a nigger." ' 



" ' La, Mister Harris,' says the lady, ' putre- 

 factions ! why, did the leaves and the trees and the 

 grass smell badly .f^' 



" ' Smell badly, marm ! ' says Black Harris ; 



