he nerve to
handle both, were frankly unconventional. Touched later by the black
magic of development, bringing brick buildings, prohibition, picture
shows, real-estate boosters, speculation and attendant evils or benefits
as one chooses to classify them, they became neither elemental nor
ethical--mere gawky mimics of both.

When western Texas was cow-country and nothing else Eagle Butte at
least was picturesque. Flickering lights, gay laughter--sometimes curses
and the sounds of revolver shots, of battles fought close and quick and
to a finish--wheezy music, click of ivory chips, the clink of glasses,
from old Bonanza's and similar rendezvous of hilarity lured to the
dance, faro, roulette, the poker table or the hardwood polished bar.

The Mecca it was in those days for cowboys weary with months on the
wide-flung range.

To-day Eagle Butte is modest, mild and super-subdued.

A garage, cement built, squatty and low and painfully new, its
wide-mouthed entrance guarded by a gasoline pump freshly painted and
exceedingly red, stands at the eastern end of the single, broad,
un-paved business street. All of the stores face one way--north--and
look sleepily across at the railroad track, the low-eaved, yellow, Santa
Fe station and the sunburnt sides of the butte beyond. Opposite the
station the old Occidental Hotel with its high porch, wide steps, narrow
windows, dingy weather-board sides and blackened roof, still stands to
remind old-timers of the days of long ago.

A city marshal, Tom Poole, a long, slim, Sandy-mustached Missourian,
completes the picture of Eagle Butte. Regularly he meets the arriving
trains and by the glistening three-inch nickel star pinned to his left
suspender announces to the traveling world that here, on the one time
woolly Kiowa, law and order at last prevail. Odd times the marshal farms
a ten-acre truck patch close to the river at the southern edge of the
town. Pending the arrival of trains he divides his time between the
front steps of the old hotel and the Elite Amusement Parlor, Eagle
Butte's single den of iniquity where pocket pool, billiards,
solo--devilish dissipations these!--along with root beer, ginger ale,
nut sundaes, soda-pop, milk shakes and similar enticements are served to
those, of reckless and untamed temperaments.

From the open door of the pool hall the marshal saw a thin, black streak
of smoke curling far out on the horizon--a dozen miles--northeast of
Eagle Butte.

"Seven