We had none of us heard the tale.

"Well, Andy found himself harnessed on to an old Scotchman one day, and they got to playing seven-up to pa.s.s the time. Andy could hardly be called 'anybody's fool' at seven-up, and the old Scotchman was no slouch either, it seemed--he had some talent into him, as they say. Anyhow, they were playing along pretty evenly; and the drinks were mounting up all the time. Pretty soon Andy began to notice that his opponent didn't always take his word for the score, but sorted his cards over, as well as his own. He got so particular at last that the thing became rather pointed, and Andy said finally:

"'You don't seem to be very easy in your mind, sir; you're picking the cards over a good deal. You surely don't mean to suspect me of taking any advantage of you.'

"'Not for the warld, Meester Sullivan! I wouldn't be suspecting ye under any sairc.u.mstances; but,' the old Scotchman added grimly, 'the man that would be watching ye would be attending to his own bizeness.'

"'And,' said Andy confidentially, when he told me the tale on himself, 'I _was_ moighty hard up at the time--right down on the bed rock--and it is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a little.'"

"You bet yer!" cried Jake, from the store. "He'd play his hand for all there was in it, anyhow. Come to drink with him, it's just as well to keep the handle of the jug your side."

"He's another of them _I_-talians, ain't he?" inquired old Murray, with a wink.

"That's what he is, sure! By the way, Colonel, did you see Sam around Deming?"

"Sam?--Sam Rider? Isn't he in the valley?"

"Not much! Sam got two months' wages ahead, so he cracked his whip, and went off on a bend."

"To blow in?"[13]

Jake laughed a.s.sent.

"I seen him," chimed in the teamster.

"Where?"

"Up at Silver."

"How was he making it?" asked Squito, with her back to us.

"About making 'a stand off,' I guess. I met him going along with his head down, like he was drunk. _We'd_ been having 'a time,' and my keg was pretty full, too. But I seen him all the same. 'Come into the "Ranch," and have a drink, Sam,' says I. 'A drink goes,' says he. 'How do you come on?' says I. He said as he'd been gambling, and was two hundred dollars ahead of the town. He 'got there with both feet'[14] at starting, and was eight hundred ahead once. But he played it off at monte. 'Well,' says I, 'you're full now; you'd better go to bed, and not play again till you're sober.'

"'I believe I will,' he says.

"But later on Thin Pete told me that he was up at the 'Central,'

gambling again. I went in and stood behind him, and looked on for a few minutes. There he was, sure enough, bucking at faro, and just a-sousing it to her red hot--betting only on the 'high card,' or 'high card, coppered.'

"'That's my kind,' says old Sam; 'you get "action" there every turn. No waiting for any durned cards to come up!' He's a high roller, by gum!--when he's got it."

"You bet your b.u.t.tons!" murmured Squito proudly, "Sam'll 'stay with 'em'

as long as he's got a check."[15]

"Bully for you, Squito!" cried Joe. "When it comes to gambling he's a thoroughbred; he puts it up[16] as if it was bad."

Squito laughed impulsively.

"They came near socking him in the cooler,[17] the other day," said the teamster.

"Is that so? What for?"

"Oh, I d'n' know!--he'd been singing the music to 'em. Sam's too broncho;[18] he gets all-fired mean[19] sometimes when he's full."

"There ain't a drop of mean blood in him," denied Squito flatly.

The teamster shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyhow, Doc Gilpen the Marshal jumped him.[20] I was right there when they met. 'Sam,' he says, 'you've made one or two bad breaks since you've been in town. Next time you ring, I'm coming for you--and going to get you, too.' 'What's the matter with your getting me now?' asked Sam. And they both stood with their hands on their six-shooters--so--watching one another like strange Indians. 'I don't want you now.' 'Well, that'll be all right! You can find me whenever you do; and you'll find me heeled,[21] too, you bet your sweet life!' says Sam. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc 'pulled out.'[22] Right opposite Lindauer's store it was. I thought there was going to be a shooting, sure. And it wanted powerful little to set 'em going now, and don't you forget it!"

"Doc would get away with him," said Joe.

"Would he!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Squito hotly.

"Yes. He's got all Sam's sand,[23] and is cooler."

"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."

"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito defiantly.

"Well, there'll be h.e.l.l a-popping whenever they do come together, and it----"

"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc Gilpen will get left right there."

The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company.

She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and "pa.s.sed" good-naturedly.

"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there to paint the town,[24] and got his tank full, and tried to ride his horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raging lion, I am! I'm a h.e.l.l-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who had pocketed his chips,[25] and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked him off his horse with the b.u.t.t-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be ---- to ---- if I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you, Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."

"That's what," a.s.sented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26] ain't around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you need it."

Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "m.u.f.fins," honey, coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but newly come from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage of the alternative which was offered to them--you can wait until the "aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have finished. The t.i.tle, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher,"

by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.

I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But "gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this--any one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so, of learning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these duties--will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than unwilling labour from his men.

Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman--a fine gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ----!

he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far from taking a liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of it by self-a.s.sertion.

One thing may be noted here. A cattle-ranch is not, like a good mine or many another source of wealth, able to afford extravagant management. To a very large extent, the money made in cattle is money saved.

Cattle-ranches will not always pay handsome dividends if called upon to support fancy managers, separate establishments for hands and master, tribes of servants, four-in-hands, trotters, good cellars and cooks, etc., etc. They may do this when cattle are "booming," but the fluctuations in the value of stock are enormous, and periods of depression recur at intervals, when even the economic ranchero finds difficulty in making both ends meet.

Where were we, though? At supper! My progress will be representable by some such eccentric tracing of involved curves and turns, as Sterne used to ill.u.s.trate his advance in "Tristram Shandy."

"Which of you boys shot this antelope?" inquired the Colonel, helping himself to a steak.

"Her," answered Joe laconically, nodding towards Squito.

"Are you a good shot, Squito?" I asked.