"Heavens!" exclaimed Dick in an aside to the major. "Is it credible that that man ate two days ago!" "Gad!" exclaimed the major, "the man's stomach is nothing but a pocket." "A pocket! I should call it an unexplored cavern!" retorted Dick. "The direction and reason of your long trail would be interesting," I resumed. "And, if not impertinent, friend, may I ask you whence you have come?" "I have journeyed from Texas," replied the man, and his voice nearly broke as he said it. "_Oh!_" exclaimed the ladies, and they sympathetically grouped themselves, anticipating, with true feminine sensitiveness, some terrible denouement. "_Texas!_" I ejaculated. "_Gad!_" said the major. "The _Devil!_" said Dick. "Yes, _Texas!_" repeated the man, and he groaned. By this time, as any intelligent reader will easily divine, our whole group was in a condition of mild excitement. Several of us had resided in Texas, and we felt that we stood at the threshold of a history,--a history with infinite possibilities in it. For myself, I knew not how to proceed. My position as a host forbade me to interrogate. The sorrows of life are sacred, and my sensitiveness withheld me from thrusting myself within the enclosure of my guest's recollections. That his experiences, could we but be favored with a narration of them, would be entertaining,--painfully entertaining,--I keenly realized; but how to proceed I saw not. I remained silent. "Yes,"--it was the stranger who broke the silence,--"I am a busted ex-Texan!" [Illustration: I AM A BUSTED EX-TEXAN.] The relief that came to me at the instant was indescribable. The path was made plain. We all felt that we were not only on the threshold of a history, but of a narration of that history. The ladies fluttered into position for listening. I could but see it, and so I am bound to record that I saw Dick irreverently punch the major. It was a punch which carried with it the significance of an exclamation. The major received it with the face of a Spartan, but with the grunt of a Chinook chief. "Friend," I said, "we are accustomed to beguile the evening hours with entertaining descriptions of travels, often of personal incidents of the haps and hazards of life; and, if it would not be disagreeable to you, we would be vastly entertained, beyond doubt, by any narration with which you might favor us of your Texan experiences and of the fortunes which befell you there."