REAL life is stranger than drama, in like manner as truth is always more marvelous than fiction. Miss "Bossie" Mulhall, rough rider, roper, and bronco buster, daughter of "Zack" Mulhall, of Oklahoma, is coming east to enter society, says the New York Herald.

"Bossie" Mulhall is the original of the heroine of "A Texas Steer," the prototype of Bossie Brander, and now the original "Bossie" is about to parallel and to reproduce in real life one more act of Playwright Hoyt's farcical Bossie. She is soon coming to Washington, where many of the scenes of "A Texas Steer" were laid.

Time, subtle metaphysician, has by the weird alchemy of the years mysteriously transmitted the emotions and the reminiscent first nighter. The curtain has been rung down on the merry play, and the farce stored away in the archives of the past. The dog-eared manuscript and the prompt book, grimy, torn and tattered, lie on a dusty shelf in the office of a theatrical agency. Hoyt is dead, but "Bossie" herself, sparkling, clever, vivacious, happy as the day is long, is coming for a taste fo the pleasures and frivolities of Washington and New York society.

Miss Mulhall the Original "Bossie"
The analogy between the real "Bossie" and the dramatic "Bossie" is as interesting as it is striking. In the first place, they are one and the same girl. Maverick Brander's daughter "Bossie" of the play was modelled after Colonel "Zack" Mulhall's daughter Agnes, nicknamed "Bossie." Mr. Hoyt spent several months on her father's big cattle range studying western life and manners, with the view of incorporating the material in a play. "Bossie" was but a tiny girl then, but Hoyt, with the true Hoytian instinct for the neat fitting and ludicrous in nomenclature, instantly seized upon the double entendre of the nickname as an appropriate one for the character which was later to be created by Flora Walsh.

Miss "Bossie" Mulhall's life has been thus far almost an exact counterpart of the farcical "Bossie." One strange coincidence has succeeded another, and to make the analogy still more complete Colonel "Zack" Mulhall, like Maverick Brander, has gone into politics, and his daughter is to appear this winter in Washington society.

The Real "Bossie"
Miss Mulhall, handsome, dashing, fearless, like her prototype of the play, is perfectly at home in the saddle. She owns several thousand head of steers herself, the profits of which serve her as pin money. When her cowboys get drunk and are unable to attend to their duties, she pitches in and helps them. She can brand steers like a veteran cattleman, and throw a laso like a "greaser." She breaks and trains her own broncos, and at the Rough Riders' reunion at Oklahoma City two years ago she came to the notice of the then Colonel Roosevelt by reason of her daring riding. She appeared in the roping contests with some of the most expert cowboys of the whole west, and was showered with praise by Colonel Roosevelt and other army officers.

The "Bossie" of the Play
That is the real "Bossie" and now for the "Bossie" of the play. Who that has seen her can ever forget Flora Walsh on the night of her first New York appearance in "A Texas Steer?" Laughing, merry, dare devil "Bossie" Brander, bright-eyed and rollicking in her short Tomboy skirt, her soft, woolen blouse thrown open at the neck and a big sombrero pulled over her curls.

The opening scene of the play began, it will remembered, at "Bossie" Brander's house. The news of her father's election had just been brought in by the negro Crab. Mink and Green and Captain Bright and Mrs. Brander, "Bossie's" mother, appeared and did their turns and then came "Bossie" rushing in like a cyclone and yelling at the top of her voice:

"Dad's elected to congress! Hooray! We got there with both feet! Scooped their checks - reds, whites and blues! Pike county's with us and we win! The other folks thought they had us there. They had two thousand negros all rounded up and ready to corral. But when Major Yell jumped in among 'em with those five dollar bills they stampeded and never stopped running till they were all on our range, and then Yell had his brand on 'em in no time. Six hundred majority for Dad, and they say Yell cleared 10,000 on the job!"

To which Mrs. Brander responded that it didn't matter what Yell cleared, "Bossie's" father had been elected to congress, and that was the important point.

"You must excuse me," said "Bossie" to Captain Green: "you must excuse me for being a little on the rampage today. You see the fact is Dad has just been elected to congress.

"I don't know how much honored he'll feel when he finds his votes cost him about %5 apiece, but he'll have the satisfaction of knowing that he came by his election honestly. He paid allit was worth for it.

"And there's no reason why he shouldn't be perfectly independent in congress, for he's under no obligations to anybody. Everybody who voted for him has got his pay in advance. I believe that is the true way to elect congressmen."

The Parallel Holts
Where Bessie Brander succeeded in having her father, Maverick Brander, elected to congress, "Bossie" Mulhall failed to secure for her father, "Zack" Mulhall, the governorship of Oklahoma. Everything that a good electioneerer could do was done by Miss Mulhall in the effort to see her father in the gubernatorial chair. All the influence of her enthusiastic personality was brought to bear upon the president, in the hope of carryhing out her ambition, but without avail. Instead of appointing his old friend the cattleman, President Roosevelt named T. B. Ferguson. Not, however, so rumor says, until the position had been offered to and declined by Colonel Mulhall.

If Miss "Bossie" in real life is one-half as attractive as Mr. Hoyt's Bossie - and 'twould be ungallant to doubt it - the belles of Washington would better guard well their honors when Miss Mulhall comes to town.