Arizona silver belt., 1893-06-24
LoouAclous souArTees.

Queer Folks One Meets While Travelling
 Over Stretches of Prnnie. ! JourneyiRg across the prairie in which over way the road runs, we at length overtal1o the strangcst looking cavalcade imaginable--a dilapidated wagon with dirty, ragged cover, drawn by an i'll as sorted team of 9 very small horse and an oyersized mule tong since fit subjects for the boneyard Tho driver is dirt be- grimed, tobacco stained, low visaged man, while his wife and family, which last is much too numerous for even wealthy man, are if anything moro dirty, more ragged and more disheveled than himself. On . tall, gaunt mule rides the eldest son and heir @, driving before him herd of two cows Q calf, one sheep, a goat and an old, blind, lame horse, while two mangy, mongrel CUTS trot in the rear as if only too fully award of their miserable existence. Occasion ally the jaded team essays to move out of a walk, but as quickly relapses into the pace which for many weary months has been its accustomed gait.
 As we rode up the following dialogue ensued;
 "Howdy."
 "Howdy."
 'Trayeling?'
 "Trayelin rite smart"
 Come fary"
 Come from the bottom lands of old Missoury."
 At which point there is lull in the conversation during which each surveys the other Suddenly the knight of the tobacco quid turns intertogatet;
 Say, stranger, what might yer hame be-"
 At this an Insane desire takes posses sion of us to reply like the schoolboy, "It might be Jones, but it ain't.r but we tell him our name, after which the way is open for an endless string of inquiries. the first of which are invariably;
 What might your business beY
 "Where be you goiny
 "Where'd you come fromy"
 "How's crops thereS"
 This sort of thing is bad enough to 20 through once, but when one passes a dozen such each day in the week, with each of whom he is expected to go through the same performance, it be- comes a terror by day and a nightmare in our dreams. Moreover, one is ex- pected to stop and go through it, and l have more than once heard myself char. acterized as "too high toned to talk to common folks. and merely because had no time to stop and talk with them. The absurdity of this is at once apparent to those here in the east. where to mind ones own business is the universal GUS tom. As matter of fact, a live, ener- getic man has no time to talk or fool with people by the way It matters not a picayune whom he meets, what their business is, where they are going or any thing else concerning them
 At night we camp at the only water hole we have seen during the day and are soon joined by three bands of nov CTS. Presently as many fires are burning, and as the darkness gathers the scene is by no means unpicturesque Children are playing about. women are cooking, the men are tending the horses and stalk ing them out for the night, while the hickering of the campfrcs the harsh talk and coarse laughter of the men lend d certain something hard to describe. If everything we possess is not borrowed by our neighbors we are lucky, even to provisions, which last of course are borrowed with the mental understand ing on both sides that they are not to be Supper over, the siege begins Visitors pour in from all sides, mostly from the male element, and for hours we are entertained with complete his tory of each. We cannot ask them 10 go. for are they not gentlemen" and l as good as wei So there we sit, until | finally one by one they drop of and leave us to ourselves.
 This is fair sample of ride over Texas roads, and the same may be re- | peated every day in the year. In fact it was during my stay until l hated the sight of wagon on the same road Post