"Magdalena?" he drawled. "Well, guess you'll have to wait here till Saturday now. Stage went out this morning at eight o'clock."
It was nine o'clock on Tuesday. En route from the station I had seen quite enough of Tucson to put my ill-luck in its strongest light. But the bar-tender did not seem to realise that there could be any misfortune in a delay of four days there.
"Take a drink?" said he. "There's worse places than Tucson; there's places where you can't get a drink."
I took a drink, in which my new acquaintance joined me.
"Is Mr. Maroney in?" I asked. Mr. Maroney was the proprietor of the hotel, and I had a message of introduction to him.
"Mr. Maroney ain't long gone to bed. The boys was having a little game of 'freeze out' last night. I guess he'll be around at midday."
A bed-room, or rather a loose-box, was assigned me in the quadrangle at the back of the saloon, and after breakfasting I strolled out to enlarge my acquaintance with the town.
Until twelve months previously, Tucson had been an unimportant adobe village; now it was growing rapidly. Edifices of brick were springing up in all directions. Practically it is the gateway between Mexico and the far Western States of America, and as such its future is assured.
Under the shop awnings in the main street loitered a crowd of handsome, bearded, bronzed miners from the neighbouring mining districts. To and fro flitted a few busy store-clothed store-keepers and clerks, and here and there a knot of men might be seen examining some specimen of quartz. A couple of leather-overalled cowboys, ostentatiously "heeled" or armed, rode down the street on their Mexican-saddled bronchos; a Chinaman stole swiftly and silently by; a half-breed led a lame horse along; a couple more "greasers" seated one behind the other went past on another equine scarecrow; sundry dogs—one dragging a swollen run-over leg after him—loafed about; and a chain-and-ball gang of convicts slowly advanced, sweeping the dusty road.