and
such--some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded
the shuffling stamp of waltz, hoe-down and cotillion.

Night at Benton plainly had begun with a gusto. It stirred one's blood. It
called--it summoned with such a promise of variety, of adventure, of
flotsam and jetsam and shuttlecock of chances, that I, a youth with
twenty-one dollars and a half at disposal, all his clothes on his back, a
man's weapon at his belt, and an appointment with a lady as his future,
forgetful of past and courageous in present, strode confidently, even
recklessly down, as eager as one to the manners of the country born.

The mysterious allusions to the Big Tent now piqued me. It was a
rendezvous, popular, I deemed, and respectable, as assured. An amusement
place, judging by the talk; superior, undoubtedly, to other resorts that I
may have noted. I was well equipped to test it out, for I had little to
lose, even time was of no moment, and I possessed a friend at court,
there, whom I had interested and who very agreeably interested me. This
single factor would have glorified with a halo any tent, big or little, in
Benton.

There was no need for me to inquire my way to the Big Tent. Upon pushing
along down the street, beset upon my course by many sights and proffered
allurements, and keenly alive to the romance of that hurly-burly of
pleasure and business combined here two thousand miles west of New York,
always expectant of my goal I was attracted by music again, just ahead,
from an orchestra. I saw a large canvas sign--The Big Tent--suspended in
the full shine of a locomotive reflector. Beneath it the people were
streaming into the wide entrance to a great canvas hall.

Quickening my pace in accord with the increased pace of the throng,
presently I likewise entered, unchallenged for any admission fee. Once
across the threshold, I halted, taken all aback by the hubbub and the
kaleidoscopic spectacle that beat upon my ears and eyes.

The interior, high ceilinged to the ridged roof, was unbroken by supports.
It was lighted by two score of lamps and reflectors in brackets along the
walls and hanging as chandeliers from the rafters. The floor, of planed
boards, already teemed with men and women and children--along one side
there was an ornate bar glittering with cut glass and silver and backed by
a large plate mirror that repeated the lights, the people, the glasses,
decanters and pitchers, and the figures of the whit