Even the schools for ranch boys in Texas included “windjamming” among their activities. But many a frontiersman who had not had the advantage of an education must have been forced by circumstances to “make it strong” in telling about the Wild West to gentle Easterners. Every new land has marvels; hence “traveler’s tales.” When facts are taken for fabrications, then the narrator is tempted to “cut loose” sure enough. One of the most honest-hearted and reliable frontiersmen that ever boiled coffee over mesquite coals was Bigfoot Wallace. He came to Texas from Virginia long before barbed wire “played hell” with the longhorns. After he had himself become a regular Longhorn he went back to his old home for a visit. As John C. Duval in the delightful _Adventures of Bigfoot Wallace_ (1870) has the old frontiersman describe his reception, he was egged on in the following manner to take the bridle off and let out the last kink. A few weeks after my arrival I went to a fandango that was given for my special benefit. There was a great crowd there, and everybody was anxious to see the “Wild Texan,” as they called me. I was the lion of the evening, particularly for the young ladies, who never tired of asking me questions about Mexico, Texas, the Indians, prairies, etc. I at first answered truthfully all the questions they asked me; but when I found they evidently doubted some of the stories I told them which were facts, then I branched out and gave them some whoppers. These they swallowed down without gagging. For instance, one young woman wanted to know how many wild horses I had ever seen in a drove. I told her perhaps thirty or forty thousand. “Oh, now! Mr. Wallace,” said she, “don’t try to make game of me in that way. Forty thousand horses in one drove! Well, I declare you are a second Munchausen!”[1] “Well, then,” said I, “maybe you won’t believe me when I tell you there is a sort of spider in Texas as big as a peck measure, the bite of which can only be cured by music.” “Oh, yes,” she answered, “I believe that’s all so, for I have read about them in a book.”