Roosevelt's hunting proclivities were well known, for he never missed an opportunity, even on the round-up, to wander up some of the countless coulees with a rifle on his shoulder after deer, or to ride away over the prairies after antelope; and the cowpunchers decided that it would be rather good fun to send him on a wild-goose chase. So they told him with great seriousness of a dozen antelope they had seen five or six miles back, suggesting that he had better go and get one. He "bit," as they knew he would, and, in spite of the fact that he had had a hard day on the round-up, saddled a horse and rode off in the direction which they had indicated. The cowboys speculated as to the language he would use when he came back. He was gone several hours, and he had two antelope across his saddle-bow when he rode back into camp. "I found them all right," he cried, "just a quarter-mile from where you said." There was a shout from the cowboys. By general consent the joke was declared as not to be on the "four-eyed tenderfoot." Most of the men sooner or later accepted Roosevelt as an equal, in spite of his toothbrush and his habit of shaving; but there was one man, a surly Texan, who insisted on "picking on" Roosevelt as a dude. Roosevelt laughed. But the man continued, in season and out of season, to make him the butt of his gibes. It occurred to the object of all this attention that the Texan was evidently under the impression that the "dude" was also a coward. Roosevelt decided that, for the sake of general harmony, that impression had better be corrected at once. One evening, when the man was being particularly offensive, Roosevelt strode up to him. "You're talking like an ass!" he said sharply. "Put up or shut up! Fight now, or be friends!" The Texan stared, his shoulder dropped a little, and he shifted his feet. "I didn't mean no harm," he said. "Make it friends." They made it friends. XVII At a round-up on the Gily, One sweet mornin' long ago, Ten of us was throwed right freely By a hawse from Idaho. And we thought he'd go a-beggin' For a man to break his pride, Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin', Boastful Bill cut loose and cried-- "_I'm an on'ry proposition for to hurt; I fulfill my earthly mission with a quirt; I kin ride the highest liver 'Tween the Gulf and Powder River, And I'll break this thing as easy as I'd flirt._" So Bill climbed the Northern Fury, And they mangled up the air, Till a native of Missouri Would have owned his brag was fair. Though the plunges kep' him reelin' And the wind it flapped his shirt, Loud above the hawse's squealin' We could hear our friend assert-- "_I'm the one to take such rakin's as a joke. Some one hand me up the makin's of a smoke! If you think my fame needs bright'nin', Why, I'll rope a streak of lightnin', And I'll cinch 'im up and spur 'im till he's broke._"