"Speakin' of beasts talkin', let me impart to you of what passes
before my eyes over on the Caliente. In the first place, I'll so far
illoomine your mind as to tell you that cattle, same as people--an'
speshully mountain cattle, where the winds an snows don't get to
drive 'em an' drift 'em south--lives all their lives in the same
places, year after year; an' as you rides your ranges, you're allers
meetin' up with the same old cattle in the same canyons. They never
moves, once they selects a home.
"As I observes, I've got a camp on the Caliente. Thar's ten ponies
in my bunch, as I'm saddlin' three a day an' coverin' a considerable
deal of range in my ridin'. Seein' as I'm camped yere some six
months, I makes the aquaintance of the cattle for over twenty miles
'round. Among others, thar's a giant bull in Long's Canyon--he's
shoreiy as big as a log house. Him an' me is partic'lar friends,
cnly I don't track up on him more frequent than once a week, as he's
miles from my camp. I almost forgets to say that with this yere
Goliath bull is a milk-white steer, with long, slim horns an' a face
which is the combined home of vain conceit an' utter witlessness.
This milky an' semi-ediotic steer is a most abject admirer of the
Goliath bull, an' they're allers together. As I states, this
mountain of a bull an' his weak-minded follower lives in Long's
Canyon.
"Thar's two more bulls, the same bein', as Colonel Sterett would
say, also 'persons of this yere dramy.' One is a five-year-old who
abides on the upper Red River; an' the other, who is only a three-
year-old, hangs out on the Caliente in the vicinity of my camp.
"Which since I've got to talk of an' concernin' them anamiles, I
might as well give 'em their proper names. They gets these last all
reg'lar from a play-actor party who comes swarmin' into the hills
while I'm thar to try the pine trees on his 'tooberclosis,' as he
describes said malady, an' whose weakness is to saw off cognomens on
everythin' he sees. As fast as he's introdooced to 'em, this actor
sport names the Long's Canyon bull 'Falstaff'; the Red River five-
year-old 'Hotspur,' bein' he's plumb b'lligerent an' allers makin'
war medicine; while the little three-year-old, who inhabits about my
camp in the Caliente, he addresses as 'Prince Hal.' The fool of a
white steer that's worshippin' about 'Falstaff' gets named 'Pistol,'
although thar's mighty little about the weak-kneed humbug to remind
you of anythin' as vehement as a gun. Falstaff, Pistol, Hotspur an'
Prince Hal; them's the titles this dramatist confers on said cattle.
"Which the West is a great place to dig out new appellations that a-
way. Thar's a gentle-minded party comes soarin' down on Wolfville
one evenin'. No, he don't own no real business to transact; he's out
to have a heart-to-heart interview with the great Southwest, is the
way he expounds the objects of his search.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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