rules, will keep on going the same old way; not because there's sense, comfort, nor profit in it, but simply because it is the same old way? I've known folks to live in places and keep at jobs, hating both, could quit easily, yet staying on and on, simply because they were there yesterday. I've got so that if people start talking over an act, I feel like saying, "For Heaven's sake! Let's try it and then we'll know," while at the same time it happens that their talk is so good, I feel bashful about cutting in. Give me the Western idea. People that get an action on, instead of an oration. That is, if they're the right kind of people. Yet I dearly love to talk. It's a strange world!

Jimmy was the Western idea on two legs. The moment he thought of a thing, he grew busy. And when work was over, I'd talk him against any man I ever met. Perhaps the chief difference between the Western man's way and the Eastern man's way is that the Westerner says it's fun and believes it, whilst the Easterner says it's a great and holy undertaking he's employed in, and wastes lots of time trying to believe it. We all do the things we like to do, and we might as well admit it, cheerful.

I hadn't much more than time to say good-by all around, and find out where Sax and Mary were going to stay, before I was off on the new deal.

"Have you ever ridden a horse?" Jim asks me, when we hit shore.

"Never," says I.

"Well," says he, rubbing his head, "we can go across on the railroad, but I'd like to stop here and there. It wouldn't be so bad if the good critters hadn't been all hired out or bought this last rush. As it is, you stand to get on to something that don't want you. My Pedro'd eat you alive if you laid a hand on him, or I'd trade with you—you got to learn sometime, Bill, but you'll get a tough first lesson here—suppose we take the train, eh?"

Now, I hadn't come to the Isthmus of Panama to exhibit all the things I was afraid of. I didn't like the thought of playing puss-in-the-corner with a horse I'd never met before, a little bit, and I liked the idea of backing out still less.

"Trot your animal out," I says. "I guess, if I get a hold on him, we won't separate for a while."

Jim rubbed his head again.

"I don't want to lose you right in the start," he says. "These mustangs are the most reliable hunks of wickedness on earth—"

"All I need to try and ride is a horse," I 

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