going on. When he neared us he moved slowly, his hands working like machinery.  "I would like to know," he began, and stopped to glare at us and grind his teeth.  "I should like to know," he continued, in a voice so weak with rage we could hardly hear it, "who turned the red bull into number three corral." 

 Charley and I went right on cleaning out the shed. We weren't going to tell on Oscar. 

 "So it's him again, heh?" shrieked Steve.  "Well, now I propose to show him something. I'll show him everything!"  He was entirely beyond the influence of reason and grammar. Charley had an ill-advised notion to play the paternal. 

 "Now, I'd cool down if I was you, Steve," he admonished. 

 "You would, would you!" foamed Steve.  "Well, who the devil cares what you'd do, anyhow? And if you tell me to cool down just once more, I'll drive you into the ground like a tent-pin." 

 I jumped through the window, and then laughed, while Charley administered his reproof with appropriate gestures. His long arms flew in the air as he delivered the inspired address, Steve looking at him, a bit of shamefacedness and fun showing through his heat. 

 "An' mo' I tell you, Steven P. Hendricks!" rolled out Charley in conclusion.  "That this citizen of Texas, jus'ly and rightjus'ly called the Lone Star State, has never yet experienced the feeling of bein' daunted by face of man. No, su'! By God, su'!"  He held the shovel aloft like a sword.  "Let 'em come as they will, male and female after their kind, from a ninety poun' Jew peddler to Sittin' Bull himself, and from a pigeon-toed Digger-Injun squaw to a fo'-hundred-weight Dutch lady, I turn my back on none!" 

 "You win, Charley," said Steve, and walked off. All Oscar caught out of it was the request that when he felt like reducing the stock on the ranch he'd take a rifle. 

 Poor Oscar! All noble and heroic sentiments struggling within him, with no outlet but a hesitating advancing of the theory that "if we didn't get rain before long, the country'd be awful dry."  Small wonder that he burst out in the bull-pen one night with "I wish the Injuns would jump this ranch!" 

 "You do?" said Charley.  "Well, durn your hide for that wish! What's got into you to make you wish that?" 

 "Aw!" said Oscar, twitching around on his stool, "I'm sick and tired of not being able to say anything.  

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