s to dust beneath
their heels; and they were worked out, panned down to scant profit, and
growing leaner picking every day.

The ginger was gone out of the barker's spiel; the forced gaiety was
dying out of the loud levees where the abandoned of the earth held their
nightly carousals. Comanche was in the lethargy of dissolution; its
tents were in the shadow of the approaching end.

Most of the shows had gone, leaving great gaps in the tented streets
where they had stood, their debris behind them, and many of the saloons
were packing their furnishings to follow. It had been a seasonable
reaping; quick work, and plenty of it while it lasted; and they were
departing with the cream of it in their pouches. What remained ran in a
stream too thin to divide, so the big ones were off, leaving the little
fellows to lick up the trickle.

A few gambling-joints were doing business still, for men will gamble
when they will neither eat nor drink. Hun Shanklin had set up a tent of
his own, the big one in which he had made his stand at the beginning
having been taken down. To make sure of police protection, he had
established himself on Main Street, next door to headquarters.

Ten-Gallon, the chief, now constituted the entire force, all his special
officers having been dropped to save expense to the municipality, since
the population had begun to leak away so rapidly and the gamblers' trust
had been dissolved.

The chief slept until the middle of each afternoon. Then he went on duty
in Hun Shanklin's tent, where he usually remained the rest of the day,
his chair tilted back against the pole at the front end. It was
generally understood that he had a large interest in the game, which was
the same old one of twenty-seven.

On the side there was an army-game outfit at which a pimple-faced young
man presided, small whiskers growing between his humors where they had
escaped the razor, like the vegetation of that harsh land in the low
places, out of the destroying edge of the wind. For army-game was held
so innocuous in Comanche that even a cook might run it.

It was the third day after the drawing, and the middle of the afternoon.
That short-time had seen these many changes in Comanche, and every hour
was witnessing more. Mrs. Reed and her party had gone that morning in
the wagon sent for them from the Governor's ranch. The Hotel Metropole,
now almost entirely without guests for its many tents and cots, was
being taken down.

The r