oats, walking in the dust.
Also, they had a month's wages aching in their pockets. We hadn't
much mor'n got the thump of their arrival out of our ears, when who
comes roaring into town but the Bengal Tiger gang, and they had
four months' wages. Owner of the mine got on a bender and paid
everybody off by mistake. You can hardly imagine how this livened
up things. There ain't nobody less likely to play lame-duck than
me, but there was no dodging the hospitality. The only idea
prevailing was to be rid of the money as soon as possible. The
effects showed right off. You could hear one man telling the folks
for their own good that he was the Old Missouri River, and when he
felt like swelling his banks, it was time for parties who couldn't
swim to hunt the high ground; whilst the gentleman on the next
corner let us know that he was a locomotive carrying three hundred
pounds of steam with the gauge still climbing and the blower on.
When he whistled three times, he said, any intelligent man would
know that there was danger around.

"Well, sir, I put the Old Missouri River to bed that night, and
he'd flattened out to a very small streamlet indeed, while the
locomotive went lame before supper, and had to be put in the
round-house by a couple of pushers. That's the way with fine
ideas. Cold facts comes and puts a crimp in them. Once I knew a
small feller I could have stuck in my pocket and forgot about, but
when we went out and took several prescriptions together on a day,
he spoke to me like this. 'Red,' says he, 'put your little hand in
mine, and we'll go and take a bird's-eye view of the Universe.'
Astonishin' idea, wasn't it? And him not weighing over a hundred
pound. Howsomever, he didn't take any bird's-eye view of the
Universe--he only become strikingly indisposed.

"Well, to get back to Boise, you never in all your life saw so many
men and brothers as was gathered there that day, and old Aggy, he
was one of the centres of attraction. That big voice and black
beard was always where the crowd was thickest, and the wet goods
flowing the freest. 'Gentlemen!' says he, 'Let's lift up our
voices in melody!' That was one of Ag's delusions--he thought he
could sing. So four of 'em got on top of a billiard table and
presented 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep' to the company, which
made me feel glad that I hadn't been brought up that way. After Ag
had hip-locked the last low note, another song-bird volunteered.