When in the old days two cow outfits met upon the range, and there was “ample time,” as Andy Adams would say, they sometimes arranged what was known as an “auguring match.” Each outfit would pit its prime yarn-spinner against the other and there followed a contest not only of invention but of endurance. John Palliser in _The Solitary Hunter; or, Sporting Adventures of the Prairies_ (London, 1856) relates how after an all-night talking contest between a Missourian and a Kentuckian, the umpire “at a quarter past five” found the Kentucky man fast asleep, his opponent “sitting up close beside him and whispering in his ear.” What the contestants talked about, Palliser does not say, but there is ample testimony to prove that the “auguring matches” on the range had as precedent among the backwoodsmen of the South who were to push out upon the ranges a kind of round table talk in which each talker sought to cap the tall tales of his fellow with one a little taller. * * * * * For genuine artists a solitary opponent is sufficient; art is substantive. _In Piney Woods Tavern; or, Sam Slick in Texas_ (Philadelphia, 1858), by Samuel A. Hammett, the narrator in traveling from the Brazos to the Trinity rivers found the San Jacinto “a roarin’ and a hummin’ it.... Free soil movements was a-goin’ on, and trees a-tumblin’ in all along the banks.” I see thar war no help for it [the narrator goes on]. So I took my feet outen the stirrups, threw my saddle-bags over my shoulder, and in me and the mar went. We war in a awful tight place for a time, but we soon landed safe. I’d jest got my critter tied out, and a fire started to dry myself with when I see a chap come ridin’ up the hill on a smart chunk of a pony.... “Hoopee! stranger”--sings out my beauty--“How d’ye? Kept your fireworks dry, eh? How in thunder did ye get over?” “Oh!” says I, “mighty easy. Ye see, stranger, I’m powerful on a pirogue; so I waited till I see a big log a-driftin’ nigh the shore, when I fastened to it, set my critter a-straddle on it, got into the saddle, paddled over with my saddle-bags, and steered with the mare’s tail.” “Ye didn’t, though, by Ned!” says he, “did ye?” “Mighty apt to”--says I--“but arter ye’ve sucked all that in and got yer breath agin, let’s know how _you_ crossed?” “Oh!” says he, settin’ his pig’s eyes on me, “I’ve been a-riding all day with a consarned ager, and orful dry, and afeard to drink at the prairie water holes; so when I got to the river I jest went in fer a big drink, swallered half a mile of water, and come over dry shod.” “Stranger,” says I, “ye’r just one huckleberry above my persimmon. Light and take some red-eye. I thought ye looked green, but I were barkin’ up the wrong tree.”