returned to town two hours ahead of you, there is a tinge of sadness about
it all.

Broncho Sam, however, made a specialty of doing all the riding himself. He
wouldn't enter into any compromise and allow the horse to ride him.

In a reckless moment he offered to bet ten dollars that he could mount and
ride a wild Texas steer. The money was put up. That settled it. Sam never
took water. This was true in a double sense. Well, he climbed the
cross-bar of the corral-gate, and asked the other boys to turn out their
best steer, Marquis of Queensbury rules.

As the steer passed out, Sam slid down and wrapped those parenthetical
legs of his around that high-headed, broad-horned brute, and he rode him
till the fleet-footed animal fell down on the buffalo grass, ran his hot
red tongue out across the blue horizon, shook his tail convulsively,
swelled up sadly and died.

It took Sam four days to walk back.

A ten-dollar bill looks as large to me as the star spangled banner, some
times; but that is an avenue of wealth that had not occurred to me.

I'd rather ride a buzz-saw at two dollars a day and found.

[Illustration: A BRONCO ERUPTION.]