“You got a lot to say about it, now ain’t yuh?” reproves Telescope. “You ain’t nothing around here but a forty-dollar puncher. You got a lot of chance to tell visitors where to head in. Come on, Mister Ames, and we’ll go up and see the man what owns this ranch, and ain’t no more sense than to pay forty dollars to a runt like that.” They climbs down and goes up to the ranch-house. “Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Muley, shaking every ounce of his two hundred and forty pounds of bone and lard. “Haw! Haw! ‘Come on, Mister Ames, and we go up to see the man’—haw, haw, haw! You will tell folks where to head in at, will yuh?” Muley is a poet. There might ’a’ been as good rhymers as him once upon a time, but they’re all dead and departed. Muley is the he-buzzard of the flock right now. He hangs on to the side of the corral and wipes the tears out of his eyes. “Gosh!” he snorts. “Telescope sure showed his breeding, Chuck. Yuh could tell he’s been well raised. Sticks his chin up in the air, like a grouse with a goiter, and proclaims: ‘Come on with me, Mister Ames.’ Haw! Haw! Haw!” “Some day I’m going to reach up and hang my fist on his jaw,” proclaims Chuck. “You better catch him in bed or carry a ladder with yuh,” says I. “You got ambition, Chuck, but your height ain’t noways adequate.” A little later old man Whittaker, who owns the Cross J outfit, comes out with Archibald, and them two goes back to town in the buckboard. Telescope comes down to the bunk-house and sets down in our midst. Chuck gives him a mean look, and goes on playing solitaire. Telescope admires himself in our cracked shaving-mirror. “Better fix your features in your mind, Telescope, ’cause you’re sure going to need a pattern after Chuck gets through with yuh,” laughs Muley. “That banty little ear-wiggler!” snorts Telescope. “I got a feeling that I ain’t going to punch cows much longer.” “Dead men punch no cows,” states Chuck. “Your perceptions are getting clearer.” “Where do yuh feel bad, Telescope?” I asks. “Tell papa where it hurts.” “Aw ——!” Telescope turns from the mirror and glares at us. “I’m glad I’m going to get away from you half-wits.” “Has the old man been kicking on yuh wasting so much time over at the Bowers ranch, holding hands with Miss Amy, or has that tumble-bug yuh had down to the corral been whispering sweet nothings in your ear?” asks Chuck. * * * * * “You leave Miss Bowers’ name out of it!” snaps Telescope. “Mister Ames is a moving-picture man, and I may cease punching the festive cow to play hero parts for him. Me and him have had quite some conversation regarding same, and he assures me that I’ve got the physique and features for a lead.” “You got the physique and features for a funeral if yuh don’t quit wearing my red tie,” says I. “That’s right—throw it on the floor. If yuh wants to make a hit with folks, why don’t yuh buy some clothes of your own?”