"Thar's one thing," suddenly observed my aged companion, as he eyed me narrowly, pausing in the interesting Colonel Sterett's relation concerning his family, and becoming doubly impressive with an uplifted fore-finger, "thar's one thing I desires you to fully grasp. As I reels off this yere chronicle, you-all is not to consider me as repeatin' the Colonel's words exact. I ain't gifted like the Colonel, an' my English ain't a marker to his. The Colonel carries the language quiled up an' hangin' at the saddle horn of his intelligence, like a cow puncher does his lariat. An' when he's got ready to rope an' throw a fact or two, you should oughter see him take her down an' go to work. Horn or neck or any foot you says; it's all one to the Colonel. Big or little loop, in the bresh or in the open, it's a cinch the Colonel fastens every time he throws his verbal rope. The fact he's after that a-way, is shore the Colonel's. Doc Peets informs me private that Colonel Sterett is the greatest artist, oral, of which his'try records the brand, an' you can go broke on Peets's knowin'. An' thar's other test'mony. "'I don't lay down my hand,' says Texas Thompson, one time when him an' me is alone, 'to any gent between the Rio Grande an' the Oregon, on sizin' up a conversation. An' I'll impart to you, holdin' nothin' back, that the Colonel is shorely the limit. Merely to listen, is an embarrassment of good things, like openin' a five-hand jack-pot on a ace-full. He can even out-talk my former wife, the Colonel can, an' that esteemable lady packs the record as a conversationist in Laredo for five years before I leaves. She's admittedly the shorest shot with her mouth on that range. Talkin' at a mark, or in action, all you has to do is give the lady the distance an' let her fix her sights once, an' she'll stand thar, without a rest, an' slam observation after observation into the bull's eye till you'll be abashed. An' yet, compared to the Colonel yere, that lady stutters!' "But now to resoome," said my friend when he had sufficiently come to the rescue of Colonel Sterett and given him his proper place in my estimation; "we'll take up the thread of the Colonel's remarks where I leaves off. "'My grandfather,' says the Colonel, 'is a gent of iron-bound habits. He has his rooles an' he never transgresses 'em. The first five days of the week, he limits himse'f to fifteen drinks per diem; Saturday he rides eight miles down to the village, casts aside restraints, an' goes the distance; Sunday he devotes to meditations.