The gable end was crowded with huge lettering of whitish gray. When those gray letters were white the sign had read:
Brown, Almandares & Company
general merchandise
best prices
for wool and hides
Long ago the firm name had been painted out; but the old letters broke dim and ghostly through, persisted stubborn under the paint that would blot them, hid and haunted beyond the letters of a later name:
Martin Bennett
Bennett had been the Company.
Neighbor Jones sprawled largely in his tilted chair, smoking with vast and enviable enjoyment. One hand was pocketed. The other, big, strong, blunt-fingered, tapped on the window sill a brave tattoo of ringing hoofs—no finicky, mimimy tanbark trot, but steady and measured, a great horse breasting the wind and the rain. To this strong cadence Neighbor Jones trolled a merry stave from the amazing ballad of the Chisholm Trail:
“Foot in the saddle and a hand on the horn;
Best old cowboy ever was born.
Hi, yi—yi—yippy, yippy hi—yi—yi!
Hi—yi—yi—yippy—yippy—yea!—”