Sundown Slim | Page 2

a cowboy in all the glory of wide Stetson,
wing chaps, and Mexican spurs.
"Thought you was the agent. I couldn't see out," apologized the tramp.
The cowboy laughed. "He was scared to open her up, so I took a chanct,
seein' as I'm agent for the purvention of crulty to Hoboes."
"Well, you got a fine chance to make a record this evening" said
Sundown, estimating with experienced eye the possibilities of Antelope
and its environs. "I et at Albuquerque."
"Ain't a bad town to eat in," commented the puncher, gazing at the sky.
"I never seen one that was," the tramp offered, experimentally.
The cowboy grinned. "Well, take a look at this pueblo, then. You can
see her all from here. If the station door was open you could see clean
through to New Mexico. They got about as much use for a Bo in these
parts as they have for raisin' posies. And this ain't no garden."
"Well, I'm raised. I got me full growth," said Sundown, straightening
his elongated frame,--he stood six-feet-four in whatever he could get to
stand in,--"and I raised meself."
"Good thing you stopped when you did," commented the puncher.
"What's your line?"
"Me line? Well, the Santa Fe, jest now. Next comes cookin'. I been
cook in everything from a hotel to a gradin'-camp. I cooked for
high-collars and swalley-tails, and low-brows and jeans--till it come
time to go. Incondescent to that I been poet select to the T.W.U."
"Temperance?"

"Not exactly. T.W.U. is Tie Walkers' Union. I lost me job account of a
long-hair buttin' in and ramblin' round the country spielin' high-toned
stuff about 'Art for her own sake'--and such. Me pals selected him
animus for poet, seein' as how I just writ things nacheral; no high-fluted
stuff like him. Why, say, pardner, I believe in writin' from the ground
up, so folks can understand. Why, this country is sufferin' full of guys
tryin' to pull all the G strings out of a harp to onct--when they ought to
be practicin' scales on a mouth-organ. And it's printed ag'in' 'em in the
magazines, right along. I read lots of it. But speakin' of eats and
_thinkin_' of eats, did you ever listen to 'Them Saddest
Words,'--er--one of me own competitions?"
"Not while I was awake. But come on over to 'The Last Chance' and
lubricate your works. I don't mind a little po'try on a full stummick."
"Well, I'm willin', pardner."
The process of lubrication was brief; and "Have another?" queried the
tramp. "I ain't all broke--only I ain't payin' dividen's, bein' hard times."
"Keep your two-bits," said the puncher. "This is on me. You're goin' to
furnish the chaser, Go to it and cinch up them there 'saddest.'"
"Bein' just two-bits this side of bein' a socialist, I guess I'll keep me
change. I ain't a drinkin' man--regular, but I never was scared of eatin'."
Sundown gazed about the dingy room. Like most poets, he was not
averse to an audience, and like most poets he was quite willing that
such audience should help defray his incidental expenses--indirectly, of
course. Prospects were pretty thin just then. Two Mexican herders
loafed at the other end of the bar. They appeared anything but
susceptible to the blandishments of Euterpe. Sundown gazed at the
ceiling, which was fly-specked and uninspiring,
"Turn her loose!" said the puncher, winking at the bartender.
Sundown folded his long arms and tilted one lean shoulder as though
defying the elements to blast him where he stood:--

"Lives there a gent who has not heard, Before he died, the saddest
word?
"'What word is that?' the maiden cried; 'I'd like to hear it before I died.'
"'Then come with me,' her father said, As to the stockyards her he led;
"Where layin' on the ground so low She seen a tired and weary Bo.
"But when he seen her standin' 'round, He riz up from the cold, cold
ground.
"'Is this a hold-up game?' sez he. And then her pa laughed wickedly.
"'This ain't no hold-up!' loud he cried, As he stood beside the fair
maiden's side.
"'But this here gal of mine ain't heard What you Boes call the saddest
word.'
"'The Bo, who onct had been a gent, Took off his lid and low he bent.
"He saw the maiden was fed up good, So her father's wink he
understood.
"'The saddest word,' the Bo he spoke, 'Is the dinner-bell, when you are
broke.'"
And Sundown paused, gazing ceilingward, that the moral might seep
through.
"You're ridin' right to home!" laughed the cow-boy. "You just light
down and we'll trail over to Chola Charley's and prospect a tub of
frijoles. The dinner-bell when you are broke is plumb correct. Got any
more of that po'try broke to ride