"Pine Knot Ike's come!" asserted Terry, as he and Harry proceeded to Auraria, whither they were bound anyway. "I don't want to see him."
"I'd a heap rather see Sol," answered Harry. "But we'll try to see the Russells. That's important."
The creek was so nearly dry that several tents and log shacks had been placed in its sandy bed. The banks were about four feet high here, and a shaky log foot-bridge crossed from town to town.
Auraria was larger than Denver City, but the buildings were rougher, whereas the Denver City logs had been surfaced and trimmed. Still, Auraria seemed to have the principal store building, as yet—a story and a half high, with a lumber roof. The upper floor was occupied by the Rocky Mountain News. Through the glass window the printers might be seen setting type. Under them was a noisy saloon.
Miners, emigrants, Mexicans, Indians—flannel shirts, heavy boots, moccasins, much whiskers and long hair: in this respect the Auraria out of doors was like the Denver out of doors.
"I hear Ike," said Terry.
At the corner just beyond the Eldorado Hotel somebody stationed beside a flaring pitchy torch was declaiming in a loud voice, before a large tent. But it wasn't Pine Knot Ike. It was the red-headed Mr. Reilly. On a placard across the tent front was the announcement, rudely charcoaled:
"SEE IT! SEE IT! SEE IT!
The Ferocious Head of Chief Bloody Knife!
Cannibal of the Plains!
Slain in Hand-to-Hand Conflict by the Noted
Frontiersman Black Panther!
Admission 50c gold."
Evidently this was the show to which Mr. Reilly had referred. Standing on a barrel, and occasionally coughing from the smoke of the torch fastened to an upright against the barrel, he strenuously invited the public inside. He accepted the price, and waved each patron to pass within. However, business was not at all brisk; and suddenly catching the eye of Harry, he beckoned.