lorado mountains.

Fellows, she was a bird. They wasn't a pony in sight, nor a squar'
foot of land that wasn't either street or straight up. It made me
plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long ways even if
you didn't see much. And this early in the evenin' they wasn't hardly
anybody in the streets at all.

I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at a
breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made a dive
for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that just said:

THIS IS A SALOON

I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had a
fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a soul in the
place.

"Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can sort
out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of yours."

I took a drink, and then another to keep it company--I was beginnin' to
sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of sauntered out to the
back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be.

Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in
a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his feet from a table.
They looked up when they see me come in, and went right on talkin'.

"Hello, girls!" says I.

At that they stopped talkin' complete.

"How's tricks?" says I.

"Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls.

I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and then,
too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a bet or two.

"Don't you ADMIRE these cow gents?" snickers one of the girls.

"Play somethin', sister," says I to the one at the pianner.

She just grinned at me.

"Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made them all
laugh a heap.

"Give us a tune," I begs, tryin' to be jolly, too.

"She don't know any pieces," says the Jew.

"Don't you?" I asks pretty sharp.

"No," says she.

"Well, I do," says I.

I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both sides
of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles up and down the keyboard two
or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys.

"That's the piece I know," says I.

But the other girl and the Jew drummer had punched the breeze.

The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder where
they was some ragged glass hangin'. She was dead game.

"Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends