“Cooked!—no!—just crusted over a little. You don’t cook broken-down horse-flesh very easy, no how; but when it comes to chasing up a prairie fire with a chunk of it, I don’t know which is the toughest, the meat or the job. You’d have laughed to split yourself to have seen me in that race—to see the fire leave me at times and then to see me brushin’ up on her agin, humpin’ and movin’ myself as though I was runnin’ agin some of those big ten mile an hour Gildersleeves in the old States. But I’m a goin’ over to Jack Haynes’s to get a cocktail and some breakfast—I’ll see you all down among the robbers on the Rio Grande.” ----- [12] By G. W. Kendall. XIX. THE FIRE-HUNT. Samuel Sikes was one of the most inveterate hunters I ever knew. He delighted in no other pursuit or pastime, and though he pretended to cultivate a small spot of ground, yet so large a portion of his time was spent in the pursuit of game, that his agricultural interests suffered much for the want of proper attention. He lived a few miles from town, and as you passed his house, which stood a short distance from the main road, a few acres of corn and a small patch of potatoes might probably attract your notice as standing greatly in need of the hoe; but the most prominent objects about Sam’s domicile pertained to his favourite pursuit. A huge pair of antlers—a trophy of one of his proudest achievements—occupied a conspicuous place on the gable end; some ten or a dozen tall fishing-poles, though modestly stowed behind the chimney, projected far above the roof of the little cabin, and upon its unchinked walls, many a ’coon and deer-skin were undergoing the process of drying. If all these did not convince you that the proprietor was a sportsman, the varied and clamorous music of a score of hungry-looking hounds, as they issued forth in full cry at every passer-by, could not fail to force the conviction. Sam had early found a companion to share with him his good or ill luck, and though he was yet on the green side of thirty, he was obliged to provide for some five or six little tallow-faced “responsibilities;” so he not only followed the chase from choice, but when his wife—who hated “fisherman’s luck” _worse_ than Sam did a “miss” or a “nibble”—took him to account for spending so many broken days, Saturday afternoons, rainy days and odd hours, to say nothing of whole nights, in the woods, without bringing home so much as a cut-squirrel or horney-head, his ready reply was, that he was “’bleeged” to do the best he could to get meat for her and the “childer.”