My lemonade being prepared, the Colonel and Bill tossed off full glasses of whiskey, acknowledged with throaty “A-ah!” and smack of lips; and I hastily quaffed my lemonade. From the dollar which the Colonel grandly flung upon the bar he received no change—by which I might figure that whereas whiskey was twenty-five cents the glass, lemonade was fifty cents.
We issued into the street and were at once engulfed by a ferment of sights and sounds extraordinary.
CHAPTER V
ON GRAND TOUR
The sun had set and all the golden twilight was hazy with the dust suspended in swirl and strata over the ugly roofs. In the canvas-faced main street the throng and noise had increased rather than diminished at the approach of dusk. Although clatter of dishes mingled with the cadence, the people acted as if they had no thought of eating; and while aware of certain pangs myself, I felt a diffidence in proposing supper as yet.
My two companions hesitated a moment, spying up and down, which gave me opportunity to view the scene anew. Surely such an hotch-potch never before populated an American town: Men flannel shirted, high booted, shaggy haired and bearded, stumping along weighted with excess of belts and formidable revolvers balanced, not infrequently, by sheathed butcher-knives—men whom I took to be teamsters, miners, railroad graders, and the like; other men white skinned, clean shaven except perhaps for moustaches and goatees, in white silk shirts or ruffled bosoms, broadcloth trousers and trim footgear, unarmed, to all appearance, but evidently respected; men of Eastern garb like myself—tourists, maybe, 73 or merchants; a squad of surveyors in picturesque neckerchiefs, and revolver girted; trainmen, grimy engineers and firemen; clerks, as I opined, dapper and bustling, clad in the latest fashion, with diamonds in flashy ties and heavy gold watch chains across their fancy waistcoats; soldiers; men whom I took to be Mexicans, by their velvet jackets, slashed pantaloons and filagreed hats; darkly weathered, leathery faced, long-haired personages, no doubt scouts and trappers, in fringed buckskins and beaded moccasins; blanket wrapped Indians; and women.
Of the women a number were unmistakable as to vocation, being lavishly painted, strident, and bold, and significantly dressed. I saw several in amazing costumes of tightly fitting black like ballet girls, low necked, short skirted, around the smooth waists snake-skin belts supporting handsome little pistols and dainty poignards. Contrasted there were women of other class and, I did not doubt, of better repute; some in gowns and bonnets that would do them credit anywhere in New York, and some, of course, more commonly attired in calico and gingham as proper to the humbler station of laundresses, cooks, and so forth.
The uproar was a jargon of shouts, hails, music, hammering, barking, scuff of feet, trample of horses and oxen, rumble of creaking wagons and Concord stages.