|WE were sitting in the hotel in San Antonio, and the conversation had taken that satisfactory turn and confidential coloring which it will take amongst congenial companions round an open wood fire. [Illustration: 9185] We had been expressing our individual opinions about men and things, especially men, and had derived a sleepy satisfaction from our general criticisms. There were men among us who had seen a good deal of frontier life, and, as one man said, “he had seen so many men die with their boots on, it seemed the natural end.” My nearest neighbor in the circle was a young artist from New Orleans, known throughout the city as “Jim the Painter,” from the art he practiced to get his living. He turned and asked me if I knew Jack Dunton; and when I denied the honor, he said: “Well, you ought to; he is a map of the whole Indian country.” This awakened my interest. I found that Dunton was living in San Antonio, that his life had been really wonderful in experiences and adventures, that he was very intelligent as well as recklessly brave, and finally, that his acquaintance was worth any man's time to cultivate. Later in the evening we walked over to Dunton's office, a long, pleasant room in the second story of a flat-roofed _adobe_ building that covered nearly half an acre. Both its stories were crammed full of the goods he sold--wagons, harnesses, and all sorts of agricultural tools. Dunton's own room was a mighty interesting place, principally in its decorations. The walls and doorways were hung with bright-colored and strange-figured Mojave and Navajoe blankets, skins and weapons were scattered around or arranged as trophies, while clumsy and rude implements of Aztec and Mexican fashioning, from Yucatan to Chihuahua, were suspended against the sides, or heaped in the corners. A large open fire, with blazing cedar logs, filled the room with the aromatic odor so pleasant and characteristic of that wood, and lighted it with fitful glares. There were many interesting stories connected with this collection, and every article in the room seemed to remind Dunton of an experience or incident in his varied career. After being introduced and comfortably seated in a chair, he passed us cigars, and while we were lighting these preliminaries to sociability he drew a square of corn husk from one side-pocket of his sack coat and a pinch of tobacco from the other side-pocket, and quietly rolled a cigarette, which gave out a pungent, penetrating odor. It was not disagreeable, but it struck me as being peculiar, even for Texas. Upon remarking that it seemed different from ordinary tobacco, Dunton replied, “It is, and I have good reason to like it, for once it saved my life.”