n the Pullman, and Hart
standing on the Pullman platform telling the boys up to the last
minute how much he was obliged.

Things went that same Sunday-school way right on to the end of the
game; and Hart said his aunt told him--as they was coming along down
to the deepo--she never would a-believed there could be such a town as
Palomitas was, out in that wild frontier country, if she hadn't seen
it with her own eyes. As to the ladies of the town, he said she told
him they certainly was the most domestic she'd ever known!

Hart was so grateful--and he had a right to be--he left a hunderd
dollars with Tenderfoot Sal and told her to blow off the town for him
that night by running a free bar. Sal done it, right enough--and that
turned out to be about the hottest night Palomitas ever had. Most of
the trouble was in the dance-hall, where it was apt to be, and had its
start, as it did generally, right around the Sage-Brush Hen: who kept
on being dressed up in her white frock and wearing her white
sun-bonnet, and looked as demure as a cotton-tail rabbit, and cut up
so reckless I reckon she about made a record for carryings on! Santa
Fe had to fix one feller because of her--shooting him like he was used
to, through his pants-pocket--and more'n a dozen got hurt in the
ordinary way.

Some of the shooting didn't seem quite as if it was needed; but it was
allowed afterwards--even if there hadn't been no free bar--there was
excuse for it: seeing the town was all strung up and had to work
itself off. Santa Fe, of course, had more excuse than anybody, being
most strung-upest. Bluffing his way through that kindergarten game, he
said, was the biggest strain he'd ever had. But he didn't mind what
trouble he'd took, he said, seeing he'd got Hart out of his hole by
taking it; and he looked real pleased when Hill spoke up--just about
voicing what all the rest of us was thinking--saying he was ready,
after the way he'd played his kindergarten hand, to put his pile on
Santa Fe Charley to make iced drinks in hell!

Of course Hill oughtn't to have spoke like that. But allowances was to
be made for Hill--owing to the ways he'd got into driving mules.

V

BOSTON'S LION-HUNT

As I've said, folks in Palomitas mostly got for names what happened to
come handiest and fitted. Likely that dude's cuffs was marked with
something he was knowed by; but as most of us wasn't particular what
his cuffs was marked, or him either, we just called hi