Mountain Man

"Well," he said, combing his beard with his fingers, "yo're growed
in size, if not in years. It's time you seen somethin' of the world.
You ain't never been more'n thirty miles away from the cabin you was
born in. Yore brother John ain't able to go on account of that ba'r he
tangled with, and Bill is busy skinnin' the ba'r. You been to whar the
trail passes, goin' to Tomahawk. All you got to do is foller it and
turn to the right where it forks. The left goes on to Perdition."

Well, I was all eager to see the world, and the next morning I was
off, dressed in new buckskins and riding my mule Alexander. Pap rode
with me a few miles and give me advice.

"Be keerful how you spend that dollar I give you," he said. "Don't
gamble. Drink in reason; half a gallon of corn juice is enough for any
man. Don't be techy--but don't forgit that yore pap was once the
rough-and-tumble champeen of Gonzales County, Texas. And whilst yo're
feelin' for the other feller's eye, don't be keerless and let him chaw
yore ear off. And don't resist no officer."

"What's them, pap?" I inquired.

"Down in the settlements," he explained, "they has men which their
job is to keep the peace. I don't take no stock in law myself, but
them city folks is different from us. You do what they says, and if
they says give up yore gun, why, you up and do it!"

I was shocked, and meditated awhile, and then says: "How can I
tell which is them?"

"They'll have a silver star on their shirt," he says, so I said
I'd do like he told me. He reined around and went back up the
mountains, and I rode on down the path.