eight train. Mayor
Ewing had abdicated. The railway company soon obtained another
station-agent, but it was some years before the town got another mayor.

On Pecos carnival nights like this, when some of the cowboys were in
town, prudent people used to sleep on the floor of Van Slyke's store
with bags of grain piled round their blankets two tiers deep, for no
Pecos house walls were more than inch boards.

At this early period of its history the few wandering advance agents of
the Gospel who occasionally visited Pecos were not well received. They
were not abused; they were simply ignored. When not otherwise
occupied, the average Pecosite had too much whittling on hand to find
time to "'tend meetin'"; of this every pine drygoods box in the town
bore mute evidence, its fair sides covered with innumerable rude
carvings cut by aimless hands.

This prevailing indifference to religion shocked Mr. Allison. As
opportunity offered he tried to remedy it, and as far as his
evangelical work went it was successful. One Tuesday morning about ten
o'clock he walked into the Lone Wolf Saloon, laid two pistols on the
end of the bar next the front door, and remarked to Red Dick, the
bartender, that he intended to turn the saloon into a church for a
couple of hours and did not want any drinks sold or cards thrown during
the services.

Taking his stand just within the doorway, pistol in hand, Mr. Allison
began to assemble his congregation. The first comer was Billy Jansen,
the leading merchant of the town. As he was passing the door Clay
remarked:

"Good-mornin', Mr. Jansen, won't you please step inside? Religious
services will be held here shortly an' I reckon you'll be useful in the
choir."

The only reply to Billy's protest of urgent business was a gesture that
made Billy think going to church would be the greatest pleasure he
could have that morning.

Mr. Allison never played favorites at any game, and so all passers were
stopped: merchants, railway men, gamblers, thugs, cowboys,
freighters--all were stopped and made to enter the saloon. The least
furtive movement to draw a gun or to approach the back door received
prompt attention from the impromptu evangelist that quickly restored
order in the congregation. When fifty or sixty men had been brought
into this improvised fold, Mr. Allison closed the door and faced about.

"Fellers," he said, "this meetin' bein' held on the Pecos, I reckon
we'll open her by singin' 'S