but his hands. His revolvers were put away in his valise where they
could not be reached in a hurry. Reynolds had said to him, "Now, Mose,
you're going into a country where they settle things with fists, so
leave your guns at home. Keep cool and don't mix in where there's no
call to mix in. If a man gives you lip--walk off and leave him--don't
hunt your guns."

Mose had also purchased a "hard" hat and shaved off his mustache in
Canon City, and Reynolds himself would not have known him as he
sauntered about the station room. Every time he lifted his fingers to
his mustache he experienced a shock, and coming before a big mirror over
the fireplace he stared with amazement--so boyish and so sorrowful did
he appear to himself. It seemed as though he were playing a part.

As the train drew out of the town, night was falling and the East grew
mysterious as the thitherward side of the river of death. Familiar
things were being left behind. Uncertainties thickened like the
darkness. All night long the engine hooted and howled and jarred along
through the deep darkness, and every time the train stopped the cattle
and sheep were inspected. Lanterns held aloft disclosed cattle being
trampled to death and sheep smothering. Wild shouting, oaths, broke
forth accompanied by thumpings, and the rumbling and creaking of cars as
the cattle surged to and fro, and at the end, circles of fire--lanterns
signaling "Go ahead"--caused a wild rush for the caboose.

Morning brought to light a land of small farms, with cattle in minute
pastures, surrounded by stacks of hay and grain, plowed fields,
threshing crews, and teams plodding to and fro on dusty roads. The
plainsman was gone, the prairie farmer filled the landscape. Towns
thickened and grew larger. At noon the freight lay at a siding to let
the express trains come in at a populous city, and in the wait Mose
found time to pace the platform. The people were better dressed, the
cowboy hat was absent, and nearly everybody wore not merely a coat but a
vest and linen collar. Some lovely girls looking crisp as columbines or
plains' poppies looked at him from the doors of the parlor cars. They
suggested Mary to him, of course, and made him realize how far he was
getting from the range.

These dainty girls looked and acted like some of those he had seen in
Canon City and the Springs. They walked with the same step and held
their dresses the same way. That must be the fashion, he thought. The
me