Ebook The Quirt and the Spur

All that has passed on before appear to me as vanishing shadows, into whose hazy depths I now dimly see as in a dream; too far away to grasp the details, yet a vision clear enough to quicken my mind and allow imagination to supply the perspective, and to even incarnate the actors, and bid them come forth from that mystic realm of long ago, and once more give a realistic performance for the mutual pleasure of old friends.

'Tis true, the cycle of time has whirled us along so fast that we have drifted into the broad field of commercialism, and now we can hardly realize that there is a past worth remembering - a time before the flood of immigration set in with its ever increasing population, gradually covering all traces of the Texas frontier.

In these modern days I find it a most difficult task to secure any data, much less to tell the true story; nevertheless, I think it is worth while.

And there is much that is interesting in the telling, too, notwithstanding my friend the critic may not find, in the "warp and woof" of the story, the weaving of a narrative that he can pronounce "all wool and a yard wide." I will be content if the few remaining frontiermen and their descendants can unravel a thread or two that will prove interesting reading.

In the fire light when the embers glow,
I see the vanishing shadows come and go,
Peopled with the figures I once knew;
Fancy figures now - farewell - adieu!