As in so many other mining towns, killers and robbers walked the streets of Goldville, and the authorities tacitly agreed to forget their pasts unless they committed some fresh crime within the town. So wanted men, with huge rewards offered for them by other States, drank, ate, and slept and had no other worry than to keep a wary eye out for an enemy.
Real law would come later, and the enforcement of it, but now, while many of the decent citizens of the town disliked and feared the roughs who hung out in the Ace High Saloon, few had the nerve to interfere, if the rowdies attempted to ride a stranger.
“Gents, I’m tellin’ yuh it’s the only lollygaholopus that ain’t in captivity,” a big, florid-faced man said with mock gravity as he pointed to one of the passengers who had arrived on the stage. There had been five in all—three hard-rock miners, “Pop” Howes, a leathery-faced old prospector, and the man who was the object of the rough’s joke.
He was a small, undersized man of about twenty-eight. His hat, with its extra high crown, was the finest grade of Stetson; his boots, custom-made patent leather, had abnormally high heels; his shirt was of silk and knotted with a loose black tie, and his suit was black, and silk-faced lapels adorned his long-tailed frock coat. If he heard the rough’s pleasantry he made no move to resent it. He pulled at his heavy black beard and gazed indifferently about the town.
“Anderson, yuh is plumb mixed in your animology. That ain’t no lollygaholopus; it’s a wampus on stilts!” a tall, gawky, hook-nosed man cried.
The bums roared at this allusion to the little man’s high heels. Even the other spectators who disliked Anderson and his cronies smiled, but still the little man in the frock coat paid no attention to the remarks.
A small, undersized young fellow, dressed in ragged, faded jeans, who was standing on the outer fringe of the watchers, stared at the little man as if he were a ghost. Then suddenly the youth’s freckled face split in a wide, loose-mouthed grin.
“Gosh, it’s him!” he cried excitedly.
Pop Howes, the old prospector who had arrived on the stage, raised himself on tiptoe and peered over the heads of the crowd.
“Who’s ‘him’?” he asked, then added regretfully: “Darn them big bullies! Why don’t they take a gent their own size?”