"In the midst of these yere flights, which the same is enough to stim'late the imagination of a Apache, Texas, as ca'm an' onmoved as the Spanish Peaks, rolls an' lights a cigarette. Then he picks up the bridle an' gives that roysterin' bronco jest enough of the Mexican bit to fill his mouth with blood an' his mind with doubts, an' stops him. When Texas swings to the ground, them two silver dollars comes jinglin' along; which he holds 'em to the saddle that a-way throughout them exercises. It's them dollars an' the cigarette that raises the licker issue between Jack an' Texas; an' of course, Texas quits winner for the nose-paint." I had settled by this time into a chair convenient to my reminiscent companion, and relishing the restful ease after a twenty-mile run, decided to prolong the talk. Feeling for subjects, I became tentatively curious concerning politics. "Cow people," said my friend, "never saveys pol'tics. I wouldn't give a Mexican sheep--which is the thing of lowest valyoo I knows of except Mexicans themse'fs--or the views of any cow-puncher on them questions of state. You can gamble an' make the roof the limit, them opinions, when you-all once gets 'em rounded up, would be shore loodicrous, not to say footile. "Now, we-all wolves of Wolfville used to let Colonel Sterett do our polit'cal yelpin' for us; sort o' took his word for p'sition an' stood pat tharon. It's in the Red Light the very evenin' when Texas subdoos that bronco, an' lets the whey outen Jack Moore to the extent of said jug of Valley Tan, that Colonel Sterett goes off at a round road-gait on this yere very topic of pol'tics, an' winds up by tellin' us of his attitood, personal, doorin' the civil war, an' the debt he owes some Gen'ral named Wheeler for savin' of his life. "'Pol'tics,' remarks Colonel Sterett on that o'casion, re-fillin' his glass for the severaleth time, 'jest nacherally oozes from a editor, as you-all who reads reg'larly the Coyote b'ars witness; he's saturated with pol'tics same as Huggins is with whiskey. As for myse'f, aside from my vocations of them tripods, pol'tics is inborn in me. I gets 'em from my grandfather, as tall a sport an' as high- rollin' a statesman as ever packs a bowie or wins the beef at a shootin' match in old Kaintucky. Yes, sir,' says the Colonel, an thar's a pensive look in his eyes like he's countin' up that ancestor's merits in his mem'ry; 'pol'tics with me that-away is shore congenital.' "'Congenital!' says Dan Boggs, an' his tones is a heap satisfact'ry; 'an' thar's a word that's good enough for a dog. I reckons I'll tie it down an' brand it into my bunch right yere.' "'My grandfather,' goes on the Colonel, 'is a Jackson man; from the top of the deck plumb down to the hock kyard, he's nothin' but Jackson. This yere attitood of my grandsire, an' him camped in the swarmin' midst of a Henry Clay country, is frootful of adventures an' calls for plenty nerve. But the old Spartan goes through.