ty-nine represented, said:

"The cowards never started, and all the weak died on the road!"

Within the towns, also, there were only three occupations: first,
supplying the cowmen and miners whatever they needed, merchandise wet and
dry, law mundane and spiritual, for although neither court nor churches
were working overtime, they were available for the few who had any use
for them; second, gambling, at monte, poker, or faro; and, third,
figuring how to slip through the next twenty-four hours without getting a
heavier load of lead in one's system than could be conveniently carried,
or how to stay happily half shot and yet avoid coming home on a shutter,
unhappily shot, or, having an active enemy on hand, how best to "get" him.

Thus, while plainly the occupations of Grant County folk were somewhat
limited in variety, in the matter of interest and excitement their games
were wide open and the roof off.

Nor did all the perils to life in Grant County lurk within the burnished
grooves of a gun barrel, according to certain local points of view, for
always it is the most unusual that most alarms, as when one of my cowboys
"allowed he'd go to town for a week," and was back on the ranch the
evening of the second day. Asked why he was back so soon, he replied:

"Well, fellers, one o' them big depot water tanks burnt plumb up this
mawnin', an' reckonin' whar that'd happen a feller might ketch fire
anywhere in them little old town trails, I jes' nachally pulled my
freight for camp!"

But a cowboy is the subject of this story--Kit Joy. His genus, and
striking types of the genus, have been cleverly described, especially by
Lewis and by Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need say little
of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's most notable and most admirable
traits has not been emphasized so much as it deserves: I mean his
downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No real cowboy ever
wilfully insulted any woman, or lost a chance to resent any insult
offered by another. Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never
broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that when one day a cowboy,
in a crowded car of a train held up by bandits, was appealed to by an
Eastern lady in the next seat,--

"Heavens! I have four hundred dollars in my purse which I cannot afford
to lose; please, sir, tell me how I can hide it."

Instantly came the answer:

"Shucks! miss, stick it in yer sock; them fellers has nerve enou