“Three months passed, and one morn as Bob Turket and Bill Smotherall
were counting their skins, they were stricken with amazement to see
Strap Buckner ride up before them on his swift gray nag. He dismounted
and stood before them, and they were the more amazed. And he looked
distant and sad and solemn, as if he were contemplating things afar
off. He spake to them not; but they fell on their faces before him, and
said: ‘Mighty champion of the world, depart hence!’ He said simply:
‘Skin for skin!’ and sadly and slowly rode away. Bob Turket and Bill
Smotherall watched him depart, and counted no more skins that day.
“Three months he dwelt in his cabin, and thrice weekly he visited the
trading house, where he walked about like one contemplating the dead,
with a sad and distant air. He was a changed man. He would drink no
whiskey, and would knock no man down. Finally, one night, a great blue
flame rose far above the valley, and cast a pale, deathly light over
the land. On the top of the blue flame appeared a great gray nag, and
astride him sat the dread form of a red monkey, and behind the red
monkey sat the form of a gigantic man waving a gigantic iron pestle,
whereat the dread form of the red monkey seemed to cower. When morning
arose, Strap’s house was in ashes and cinders.
“Evasit, abiit! Since that mysterious and perhaps fatal night, he has
never been seen in his proper person as in the olden time. Yet often at
night when the tempest howls and the thunders roar, his form, or
shadow, or image, or whatever it be, is seen to stride this valley in
which we ride, on his swift bob-tail nag. When a Buckner’s Creek baby
cries, whether from pure perverseness or from colic, only say to him
‘Strap Buckner’ once, and he will forthwith scrooch up in his cradle,
and you will hear no more from that baby for hours. Behold in him the
titular divinity to whom all the cowboys lift up their emulation and
prayers.”
“I perceive, sir,” said I, “that thou art a true poet, and I thank
thee.”
“And I perceive, sir,” said he, “that thou art a true epilogue, and I
thank thee. This is the road which bids me depart from thee. Farewell!”
He turned his horse and departed from me, as other friends had done
before.