“‘Good mornin’, Lanty,’ ses he. ‘You didn’t see nothin’ nowhere of nar’ a big speckled rooster that didn’t belong to nobody, did you?’ ses he. “‘Didn’t I?’ ses I. “‘Come, Lanty,’ ses he, ‘let’s take a nipper,’ ses he; and then I up and tells him all about it.” “Had Mr. Allen no chickens of his own?” asked the senior. “Sartin’,” rejoined Lanty; “but there warn’t a rooster in the crowd. They was _all layin’ hens_!” “Well,” inquired another of the referees, “how many of these hens had Mr. Allen?” This question fairly “stump’d” Lanty for a moment, but he quickly answered: “Why, with what was there, and what wasn’t there, counting little and big, spring chickens and all, _there was forty odd, exactly_!” No further questions were put to this witness. XXIV. OLD SINGLETIRE.[15] THE MAN THAT WAS NOT ANNEXED. A good story is told of this bold frontiersman, who had made himself notorious, and given his character the _bend sinister_, by frequent depredations on both sides the boundary line between Texas and the United States. The old fellow had migrated thither from parts unknown, years since, knew every foot of country for fifty miles on either side in his vicinity, and had communication by runners with many “_birds of the same feather_,” then common in the region. The old fellow saw, with sorrow and regret, the rapid influx of population within the last ten years, and was compelled gradually to narrow his sphere of _usefulness_; for, said he: “People’s a gittin’ too thick about me—tha and their varmints and critters is fillin’ up the woods and spilin’ the huntin’—and then tha ain’t no chance for a fellar to _speculate_ upon travellers as tha used to be when tha wan’t anybody to watch a fellar. Why, tha is getten to be so _civylizated_ that a fellar can’t drink a barrel of double-rectified ’thout havin’ ’em all abusin’ him about it—and then ef he do as happen jist by accident to drap half an ounce of lead into a feller, why tha is all up in arms about it. Now t’other day, when I wanted to mark Joe Sliteses’ ears like tha marks their hogs, ’case he called me a vill-_yan_, they wanted to _jewdicate_ me afore the court. But, ’cuse ’em for a set of fools, they ain’t a-gwoin’ to fool ‘Old Singletire,’ ef he is a-gitten old, and ain’t as quick on the trigger as he used to was. “Dang their skins, I don’t care ef tha _does_ annexate Texas! I’ll show ’em somethin’—tho’ tha thinks tha is got me slick when tha git the two countries wedged up into one—but I’ll fix ’em; I’ll quit, and go to Arkansaw, whar a decent white man kin live ’thout bein’ pestered, and ’bused and _jewdicated_!”