354 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
the ground very soft, nothing worse would come of it than 
a smart jolt, which the Doctor would aver, with the most 
indomitable good humor, “assisted his digestion.” 
Pony never seemed to feel at liberty to desert his friend, 
after he had demonstrated his affection in this curious fashion, 
but would stand perfectly still, and with a very demure, 
repentant look, take the kick which the Doctor always 
favored him with before remounting. 
I have laughed till my sides ached at this quaint couple. 
The Doctor was the strangest compound of simplicity and 
good humor that can be conceived. 
The Rangers were most of them gentlemen, in breeding at 
least, so that the days of our travel glided by delightfully, 
enlivened with pleasantries and tales of curious adventure, 
to which I was a most untiring listener. I had, in the mean- 
time, received my horse at the hands of the Mexican, and 
was very well pleased at his behavior. The character of the 
scenery was now entirely changed. It had been agreeably 
diversified before, but now we had stretched around us to the 
horizon, the fatiguing monotony of a dead-level, sterile plain, 
covered with coarse thin grass, with only once in fifteen or 
twenty miles a clump of stunted bushes to relieve the eye. 
This continued for several days. 
At last, however, just as we were beginning to be exces- 
sively bored by it, a dim broken line looked in the lilac 
distance before us like a great bank of clouds. This, to our 
great relief, was announced to be the San Saba Hills. 
“Now,” said the little Doctor, who had been looking some- 
what disconsolate, but brightened up when ,he heard this, 
“Now for the bear-steaks ! And I warn you, gentlemen, that 
I shall win the first that are eaten, with this same spear of 
mine, which has been the subject of so much wit among you 
all! You need not laugh, I shall confound you before to- 
morrow night.” 
And saying this, he plunged his spurs into the sides of 
