ple would bring. I never saw the colony.

When I got back to the hotel Sours said to me:

"Young man, don't you want a job?"

I told him I should be glad of something to do.

"The man that has been taking care of my barn has just gone on the
train," continued Sours. "He got homesick for the States, and lit out
and never said boo till half an hour before train-time. If you want
the job I'll give you twenty-five dollars a month and your board."

"I'll try it a month," I said; "but I'll probably be going back myself
before winter."

"That's it," exclaimed Sours. "Everybody's going back before winter. I
guess there won't be nothing left here next winter but jack-rabbits
and snowbirds."

I had hoped for something better than working in a stable, but my
money was so near gone that I did not think it a good time to stand
around and act particular. Besides, I liked horses so much that the
job rather pleased me, after all.

Toward evening Sours came to me and said he wished I would spend the
night in the barn and keep awake most of the time, as he was afraid it
might be broken into by some of the graders. They were acting worse
than ever. There was no town government, but a man named Allenham had
some time before been elected city marshal at a mass-meeting. During
the day he appointed some deputies to help him maintain order.

At about ten o'clock I shut up the barn, put out my lantern, and sat
down in a little room in one corner which was used for an office. The
town was noisy, but nobody came near the barn, which was back of the
hotel and out of sight from the street. Some time after midnight I
heard low voices outside and crept to a small open window. I could
make out the forms of some men under a shed back of a store across a
narrow alley. Soon I heard two shots in the street, and then a man
came running through the alley with another right after him. As the
first passed, a man stepped out from under the shed. The man in
pursuit stopped and said:

"Now, I want Jim, and there's no use of you fellows trying to protect
him." It was Allenham's voice.

There was a report of a revolver so close that it made me wink. The
man who had come from under the shed had fired pointblank at Allenham.
By the flash I saw that the man was Pike.

CHAPTER II

The rest of my second Night at Track's End, and part of another: with
some Things which happen between.

I was too frightened at first to move, and stood at the win