gracious, as he went about
whistling "Wait for the wagon," and jingling with gold chains and
heavy jewelry. Still more exhilarating was the prosperous confidence
of the bar-keeper, who took in, while Walker was determining a drink,
not less than a dozen quarter-dollars, from blue-shirted, bearded,
thirsty men with rifles, who came along in a large covered wagon of
western tendency, in which they immediately departed with haste, late
as it was, as if bound to drive into the sun before he went down
behind the far-off edge. Walker used to say, jocularly, that he
supposed this must have been the wagon for which the landlord
whistled, and which came to his call.

Everything denoted that there was abundance of money in that favored
place. Even small boys who came in and called for cigars and drinks
made a reckless display of coin as they paid for them, and then drove
off in their wagons,--for they all had wagons, and were all intent
upon driving rapidly in then toward the west.

But, as night fell, travel went down with the declining day; and
Walker felt himself alone in the world,--a man without a dollar.
Nevertheless, he called for good cheer, which was placed before him on
a liberal scale: for landlords thereabouts were accustomed to provide
for appetites acquired on the plains, and their supply was obliged to
be both large and ready for the chance comers who were always dropping
in, and upon whom their custom depended. So he ate and drank; and
having appeased hunger and thirst, he went into the bar, and opened
conversation with the landlord by offering him one of his own cigars,
a bunch of which he got from the bar-keeper, whom he particularly
requested not to forget to include them in his bill, when the time for
his departure brought with it the disagreeable necessity of being
served with that document.

Western landlords, in general, are not remarkable for the reserve with
which they treat their guests. This particular landlord was less so
than most others. He was especially inquisitive with regard to
Walker's exquisite pantaloons, the like of which had never been seen
in that part of the country before. His happiness was evidently
incomplete in the privation of a similar pair.

"Them pants all wool, now?" asked he, as he viewed them with various
inclinations of head, like a connoisseur examining a picture.

"All except the stripes," replied Walker;--"stripes is wool and cotton
mixed; gives 'em a finer grain, you