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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: remarkable strain of yells that the cow-punchers invented as the speech
best understood by cows--Oi-ee, yah, whoop-yahye-ee, oooo-oop, oop,
oop-oop-oop-oop-yah-hee!" But that gives you no idea of it. Alphabets are
worse than photographs. It is not the lungs of every man that can produce
these effects, nor even from armies, eagles, or mules were such sounds
ever heard on earth. The cow-puncher invented them. And when the last
cow-puncher is laid to rest (if that, alas! have not already befallen)
the yells will be forever gone. Singularly enough, the cattle appeared to
appreciate them. Tommy always did them very badly, and that was plain
even at this distance. Nor did he give us a homestretch, after all. The
bald-faced horse made a number of evolutions and returned beside the
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