Along towards one in the morning the stable-man at Ryan's livery met with an accident, being clubbed. Then a couple of men walked round the stalls, loosed all the horses, and drove the whole outfit away through the back gate. The same proceedings occurred at the Spur livery, and in all the large stables, until two hundred head of good stock were gathered and run off to the northward.
In Main Street, hitched to the snubbing posts, stood a score of saddled horses, a waiting patient to take their drunkards home. These poor creatures were cared for tender by a young man who went along casual, feeding them each a bunch of dry herbs, the same being loco weed, and a heaps powerful medicine. Now we turn to the railroad station, where the main game was being played.
At one a. m. the night operator in the depôt remembered all of a sudden that the lady clerk, Miss Brumble, at Contention, had wired him to send on a parcel of stockings by Number 4. The night freight train was pulling out at the time, so he ran across the platform and pitched the parcel into the caboose as the cars went rolling past him. "Miss Brumble's socks!" says he.
"All correct!" says the conductor; and the train went rumbling off into the desert. Then the night operator—which his name was Bowles—turned round to point back for his office, and suddenly trod on a preacher.
"Pardon me," says the reverend stranger.
"Oh, don't mention it," says the clerk, some sarcastic.
"'Scuse me, seh, may I venture to—"
"Well, what's the matter with you?"
"My poor lost brother, I am wishful to be infawmed if Misteh Michael Ryan——"
"He's in his car. I'm busy."