His own eyes narrowed. He looked curiously, studiously, at the face of the first man he had ever been obliged to credit with pistol work approaching his own. The face had changed. It had not lost its concentration. It was a mask, expressionless. Hickok studied the mask for a moment. He saw in it his own face also. He put a hand on McMasters’ shoulder.
The two turned down the street, Hickok flinging back his long yellow hair in a gesture habitual with him.
“Take a good look at the work on them two signs, men,” said he, accosting the curious followers. “You ain’t apt to see better. This man and I are going to see peace and quiet in Abilene. He’s my friend and my deputy.
“I didn’t think the man lived that could do it,” said he to McMasters as they walked away together. “Your six are bunched as good as mine, and your time is perfect. Come on down to the Cottage and let’s sit around for a while.
“Hello, what’s that?” he added. A group of men was coming up at a fast gait from the southern edge of the town. Among them was one, apparently a leader, whose rapid discourse occasionally was broken by wild whoops. “Who’s that?” laughed Hickok. “Some more wild men from down the trail?”
In effect, it was Mr. McCoyne, explaining to the citizens of Abilene that beyond a peradventure he had met and traveled with an actual herd of cattle, actually bound for Abilene. Moreover, the said herd was then and there camped just below the Solomon, within easy reach of town.
This certainly was news of interest to McMasters as well as to Wild Bill Hickok. McCoyne was too much excited to identify any one, did not remember McMasters, whom he had not recently seen and never had known well.
“Listen, men!” he shouted. “We’ve got to have a celebration. Get all the Eastern men together. Go see if our new band is sober enough to play any sort of tune. Get ’em down on the portico at the Drovers’ Cottage in an hour or so. When I bring the herd into town, and we get right opposite the Cottage, tell ’em to strike up. We’ve got to show these people what a real live town is.
“Now, come on,” he resumed. “I own a interest in the Spread Eagle Saloon”—it chanced to be the one whose sign had served for a target just now, later a matter of much pride to the owner—“but I’m going to change the name to Lone Star. Come on and have a drink with McCoyne, president of the Abilene Stockyards!”
By magic, from their tents and dugouts, their sod huts and log hovels and their residences of raw pine board, the men of Abilene assembled—border men, skin hunters, loafers, gamblers, thieves, citizens and aliens, merchants and cattle buyers; a throng sufficiently motley for a total population of a very hundred. They crowded into the saloon, formed an overflow meeting upon the outside; primitive men in a primitive day.