Once the cook refused to pick up the broken thread of his story, John Levering, our horse-wrangler, preempted the vacated post. “I was over in Louisiana a few winters ago with a horse herd,” said John, “and had a few experiences. Of all the simple people that I ever met, the ‘Cajin’ takes the bakery. You’ll meet darkies over there that can’t speak a word of anything but French. It’s nothing to see a cow and mule harnessed together to a cart. One day on the road, I met a man, old enough to be my father, and inquired of him how far it was to the parish centre, a large town. He didn’t know, except it was a long, long ways. He had never been there, but his older brother, once when he was a young man, had been there as a witness at court. The brother was dead now, but if he was living and present, it was quite possible that he would remember the distance. The best information was that it was a very long ways off. I rode it in the mud in less than two hours; just about ten miles. “But that wasn’t a circumstance to other experiences. We had driven about three hundred horses and mules, and after disposing of over two thirds of them, my employer was compelled to return home, leaving me to dispose of the remainder. I was a fair salesman, and rather than carry the remnant of the herd with me, made headquarters with a man who owned a large cane-brake pasture. It was a convenient stopping-place, and the stock did well on the young cane. Every week I would drive to some distant town eighteen or twenty head, or as many as I could handle alone. Sometimes I would sell out in a few days, and then again it would take me longer. But when possible I always made it a rule to get back to my headquarters to spend Sunday. The owner of the cane-brake and his wife were a simple couple, and just a shade or two above the Arcadians. But they had a daughter who could pass muster, and she took quite a shine to the ‘Texas-Hoss-Man,’ as they called me. I reckon you understand now why I made that headquarters?—there were other reasons besides the good pasturage.