It was in Charleston, I remembered, and the slave-ships used to discharge there in those days. My grandmother had sung it then to her beaux; officers they were; no wonder she chose it--"Oh, she loved a bold dragoon"--and now I heard it sung on an Idaho cattle-range to quiet two thousand restless steers. Our talk at first, after the cattle had quieted down, ran upon all manner of subjects. It is astonishing to note what strange things men will talk about at night and in a solitude. That night we covered religion, of course, astronomy, love affairs, horses, travel, history, poker, photography, basket-making, and the Darwinian theory. But at last inevitably we came back to cattle and the pleasures and dangers of riding the herd. "I rode herd once in Nevada," remarked Bunt, "and I was caught into a blizzard, and I was sure freezing to death. Got to where I couldn't keep my eyes open, I was that sleepy. Tell you what I did. Had some eating-tobacco along, and I'd chew it a spell, then rub the juice into my eyes. Kept it up all night. Blame near blinded me, but I come through. Me and another man named Blacklock--Cock-eye Blacklock we called him, by reason of his having one eye that was some out of line. Cock-eye sure ought to have got it that night, for he went bad afterward, and did a heap of killing before he _did_ get it. He was a bad man for sure, and the way he died is a story in itself." There was a long pause. The ponies jogged on. Rounding on the herd, we turned southward. "He did 'get it' finally, you say," I prompted. "He certainly did," said Bunt, "and the story of it is what a man with a' imaginary mind like you ought to make into one of your friction tales." "Is it about a treasure?" I asked with apprehension. For ever since I once made a tale (of friction) out of one of Bunt's stories of real life, he has been ambitious for me to write another, and is forever suggesting motifs which invariably--I say invariably--imply the discovery of great treasures. With him, fictitious literature must always turn upon the discovery of hidden wealth. "No," said he, "it ain't about no treasure, but just about the origin, hist'ry and development--and subsequent decease--of as mean a Greaser as ever stole stock, which his name was Cock-eye Blacklock.