d luck in doing this, and fought with the graders. I heard two
or three shots soon after I went to bed, and thought of my mother.

Some time late in the night I was awakened by a great rumpus in the
hotel, and made out from what I heard through the laths that some men
were looking for somebody. They were going from room to room, and soon
came into mine, tearing down the sheet which was hung up for a door.
They crowded in and came straight to the bed, and the leader, a big
man with a crooked nose, seized me by the ear as if he were taking
hold of a bootstrap. I sat up, and another poked a lantern in my
face.

"That's him," said one of them.

"No, he was older," said another.

"He looks like he _would_ steal a dog, anyhow," said the man with the
lantern. "Bring him along, Pike."

"No," said the man who had hold of my ear, "he ain't much more'n a
boy--we're looking for grown men to-night."

Then they went out, and I could feel my ear drawing back into place as
if it were made of rubber. But it never got quite back, and has always
been a game ear to this day, with a kind of a lop to it.

Sours told me in the morning that they were looking for the man that
stole their dog, though he said he didn't think they had ever had a
dog. Pike, he said, had come out as a grader, but it had been a long
time since he had done any work.

I took a look around town after breakfast and found forty or fifty
houses, most of them stores or other places of business, on one street
running north and south. There were a few, but not many, houses
scattered about beyond the street. Some of the buildings had canvas
roofs, and there were a good many tents and covered wagons in which
people lived. The whole town had been built since the railroad came
through two months before. There was a low hill called Frenchman's
Butte a quarter of a mile north of town. I climbed it to get a view of
the country, but could see only about a dozen settlers' houses, also
just built.

The country was a vast level prairie except to the north, where there
were a few small lakes, with a little timber around them, and some
coteaux, or low hills, beyond. The grass was dried up and gray. I
thought I could make out a low range of hills to the west, where I
supposed the Missouri River was. On my way back to town a man told me
that a big colony of settlers were expected to arrive soon, and that
Track's End had been built partly on the strength of the business
these peo