at one "could take a corncob and a lightning bug
and make him run himself to death trying to get away." It is clearly
unnecessary to explain why the few men of this sort in the community did
not occupy positions of any particular prominence. Their opinions did
not seem to carry as much weight as those of other gentlemen who were
known to be notably quick to draw and shoot.

I even recall many instances where the pistol entered into the pastimes
of the community. One instance will stand telling:

A game of poker (rather a stiff one) had been going on for about a
fortnight in the Red Light Saloon. The same group of men, five or six
old friends, made up the game every day. All had varying success but
one, who lost every day. And, come to think of it, his luck varied too,
for some days he lost more than others. While he did not say much about
his losings, it was observed that temper was not improving.

This sort of thing went on for thirteen days. The thirteenth day the
loser happened to come in a little late, after the game was started. It
also happened that on this particular day one of the players had brought
in a friend, a stranger in the town, to join the game, When the loser
came in, therefore, he was introduced to the stranger and sat down. A
hand was dealt him. He started to play it, stopped, rapped on the table
attention, and said:

"Boys, I want to make a personal explanation to this yere stranger.
Stranger, this yere game is sure a tight wad for a smoothbore. I'm loser
in it, an' a heavy one, for exactly thirteen days, and these boys all
understand that the first son of a gun I find I can beat, I'm going to
take a six-shooter an' make him play with me a week. Now, if you has no
objections to my rules, you can draw cards."

Luckily for the stranger, perhaps, the thirteenth was as bad for the
loser as its predecessors.

Outside the towns there were only three occupations in Grant County in
those years, cattle ranching, mining and fighting Apaches, all of a sort
to attract and hold none but the sturdiest types of real manhood, men
inured to danger and reckless of it. In the early eighties no
faint-heart came to Grant County unless he blundered in--and any such
were soon burning the shortest trail out. These men were never better
described in a line than when, years ago, at a banquet of California
Forty-niners, Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, speaking of the
splendid types the men of for