Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1921-05-28

his Tyre; a perfumed stiffness seemed to
fill all his world. While old man Ellison
was pottering among his floeks of sheep
on his mile an hour pony, and while the
Kiowa took his siesta in the burning
sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam
would lie on his cot thinking what
happy world he lived in, and how kind
it is to the ones whose mission in life 1t
is to give entertainment and pleasure.
Here he had food and lodging as good as
he had ever longed for; absolute i'm
munity from care or exertion or strife;
an endless welcome, and a host whose
delight at the sixteenth repetition of
song or story was as keen as at its
initial giving. Was there ever a
troubadeur of old who struck upon as
royal a castle in his wanderings? While
he lay thus, meditating upon his bless
ings, little brown cottontails would
shyly frolic through the yard; covey
of whitetopknotted blue quail would run
past, in single file twenty yards away !;
a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantu-
las, would hop upon the fence and salute
him with sweeping flourishes of its long
tail. In the eighty acre horse pasture
the pony with the Dantesque face grew
fat and almost smiling. The troubadour
was at the end of his wanderings.
Old man Ellison was his own vaciero.
That means that he supplied his sheep
camps with wood, water and rations by
his own labors instead of hiring a
vaciero. On small ranches it is often
done
One morning he started for the camp
OF Incarnacion Felipe de la Cruz Y Monte
Piedras tone of his sheep herders) with
the weeks usual rations Of brown beans,
coffee, meal and sugar. Two miles away
On the trail from old Ft. Ewing he met,
face to face, a terrible being called King
James, mounted on a fiery, prancing,
Kentucky bred horse.
King Jdmess real name was James
King; but people reversed it because it
seemed to fit him better, and also be-
cause it seemed to please his majesty.
King James was the biggest cattleman
between the Alamo plaza in San Antoine
and Bill Hopper's saloon in Brownsville.
Also he was the lOudest and most Of
man in southwest Texas. And he al
ways made good whenever he Dragged
and the more noise he made the more
dangerous he was. In the story papers
it is always the quiet. mild hammered
man with light blue eyes and a low
voice who turns out to be really danger
Gus; but in real life and in this story
such is not the case. Give me my choice
between assaulting a large loud mouthed
roughhouser and an inoffensive stranger
with blue eyes sitting quietly in a cor
ner, and you VIII see something doing
in the corner every time
King James, as l intended to say
earlier, was fierce. two hundred sun
burned, blond man, as pink as an October
strawberry, and with two horizontal Sits
under shaggy red eyebrows for eyes On
that day he wore a flannel shirt that was
tan-colored, with the exception of GER
tain large areas which were darkened by
transudatiOns due to the summe- sun
| There seemed to be other clothing and
furnishings about him. such as brown
duck trousers stuffed into immense
| boots and red handkerchiefs and re-
yolyers; and q shotgun laid across his
I'll IL Il. l. ~
OF cartridges shining in it-but your
/ mind skidded off such accessories; what
! held your gaze was just the two little
| horizontal Sits that he used for eyes
This was the man that old man Eli
son met on the trail; and when you
count up in the barons favor that he
was % and weighed ninety eight pounds
( ana had heard Of King James record
and that he 1.-THE baron) had a banker
/ Ing for the vita simplex and had no
gun with him and wouldn't have used
II If he had, you can't censure him II
] tell you that the smiles with which
the troubadour had filled his wrinkles
went out Of them and left them plain
wrinkles again. But he was not the kind
Of baron that flies from danger He
refined in the mile an hour pony tho diff
hcult feaU, and saluted the formidable
monarch.
King James expressed himself with
royal dlrectnegs.
you're that old snoozer that's run
ming sheep on this range, amt you z"
said he. What right have you got to
do it: Do you own any land, or lease
any?"
Il have two sections leased from the
State" said old man Ellison, mildly.
Not by no means you haven't" said
King James. y our lease expired yes
| terday, and I had a man at the land
office on the minute to take II up. You
don't control a foot Of grass in Texas
| You sheep men have got to git Your
times up, It's a cattle country, and
there amt any room in it for snoozers.
| This range you've got your sheep on is
mine. I'm putting up a wire fence. forty
| by sixty miles; and II there's a sheep
inside OF II whom its done tn be q dead