they're as gun-shy as a female institoote. Big b'ars an' little
bars, it's all sim'lar; for the old ones tells it to the young, an'
the lesson is spread throughout the entire nation of b'ars. An'
yere's where you observes, enlightenment that a-way means a-
weakenin' of grizzly-b'ar courage.

"What's that, son? You-all thinks my stories smell some tall! You
expresses doubts about anamiles conversin' with one another? That's
where you're ignorant. All anamiles talks; they commoonicates the
news to one another like hoomans. When I've been freightin' from
Dodge down towards the Canadian, I had a eight-mule team. As shore
as we're walkin'--as shore as I'm pinin' for a drink, I've listened
to them mules gossip by the hour as we swings along the trail. Lots
of times I saveys what they says. Once I hears the off-leader tell
his mate that the jockey stick is sawin' him onder the chin. I
investigates an' finds the complaint troo an' relieves him. The nigh
swing mule is a wit; an' all day long he'd be throwin' off remarks
that keeps a ripple of laughter goin' up an' down the team. You-all
finds trouble creditin' them statements. Fact, jest the same. I've
laughed at the jokes of that swing mule myse'f; an' even Jerry, the
off wheeler, who's a cynic that a-way, couldn't repress a smile.
Shore! anamiles talks all the time; it's only that we-all hoomans
ain't eddicated to onderstand.

"Speakin' of beasts talkin', let me impart to you of what passes
before my eyes over on the Caliente. In the first place, I'll so far
illoomine your mind as to tell you that cattle, same as people--an'
speshully mountain cattle, where the winds an snows don't get to
drive 'em an' drift 'em south--lives all their lives in the same
places, year after year; an' as you rides your ranges, you're allers