could not make out. Since they were coming from
the opposite direction he was sure to have his curiosity gratified. His
roving eyes came back to the greasewood flat and rested there
speculatively. Suddenly his jaw dropped and a crumb rolled out. He
looked as though an apparition had risen before his bulging eyes.
Involuntarily he sprang to his feet and cried, "My Gawd--what a great
place to start a town!"

The idea came with such startling force that it seemed to the Major as
if something broke in his brain. Other ideas followed. They came
tumbling over each other in their struggle to get out all at once. A
panorama of pictures passed so swiftly before his eyes that it made him
dizzy. His eyes gleamed, the color rose in his weather-beaten cheeks,
the hand with which he pointed to the greasewood flat below trembled as
he exclaimed in an excitement that made his breath come short:

"The main street'll run up the creek and about there I'll put the Op'ry
House. The hotel'll stand on the corner and we'll git a Carnegie Libery
for the other end of town. The High School can be over yonder and we'll
keep the saloons to one side of the street. There'll be a park where
folks can set, and if I ain't got pull enough to git a fifty thousand
dollar Federal Buildin'--"

Then came the inspiration which made the Major stagger back:

"I'll git the post office, and name it Prouty!"

He felt so tremulous that he had to sit down.

It seemed incredible that he had not thought of this before, for deep
within him was a longing to have his name figure in the pages of the
history of the big new state. Tombstones blew over, dust storms
obliterated graves, photographs faded, but with a town named after him
and safely on the map, nobody could forget him if he wanted to.

The Major's assertion concerning his "pull" was no idle boast. There
were few men in the state with a wider acquaintance, and he was a
conspicuous figure around election time. The experience he had acquired
in his younger days selling Indian Herb Cough Syrup from the tailboard
of a wagon, between two sputtering flambeaux, served him in good stead
when, later, he was called upon to make a few patriotic remarks at a
Fourth of July Celebration. His rise was rapid from that time, until now
his services as an orator were so greatly in demand for cornerstone
layings and barbecues that, owing to distance between towns, it kept him
almost constantly on the road.

The Major sold an