"Grub-pile! All down for grub!" yelled the cook, and the boys came trooping in. They were all strangers, but not strange to Mose. They conformed to types he already knew. Some were young lads, and the word having passed around that "Black Mose" was in camp, they approached with awe. The man whose sinister fame had spread throughout three States was a very great personage to them.
"Did you come by way of Wagon Wheel?" inquired a tall youth whom the others called "Brindle Bill."
"Yes; camped there one night."
"Ain't it a caution to yaller snakes? Must be nigh onto fifteen thousand people there now. The hills is plumb measly with prospect holes, and you can't look at a rock f'r less'n a thousand dollars. It shore is the craziest town that ever went anywhere."
"Bill's got the fever," said another. "He just about wears hisself out a-pickin' up and a-totein' 'round likely lookin' rocks. Seems like he was lookin' fer gold mines 'stid o' cattle most of the time."
"You're just in time for the turnament, Mose."
"For the how-many?"
"The turnament and bullfight. Joe Grassie has been gettin' up a bullfight and a kind of a show. He 'lows to bring up some regular fighters from Mexico and have a real, sure-'nough bullfight. Then he's offered a prize of fifty dollars for the best roper, and fifty dollars for the best shooter."
"I didn't happen to hear of it, but I'm due to take that fifty; I need it," said Mose.