p, and helped to foster the nauseating scent of the place.

A row of reeking oil lamps, swinging in crazy wire swings, were
suspended down the center from the moldering beams, and in the diamond
window spaces were set a number of black bottles, the neck of each being
stuffed with a tallow candle.

One corner of the room was set apart for the fiddler, and here a dais of
rough boarding, also draped in print stuff, was erected to meet the
requirements of that honored personage. Such was the uncouth place where
the Breeds proposed to hold their orgie. And of its class it was an
excellent example.

At ten o'clock the barn was lit up, and strangely bizarre was the
result. The draught through the broken windows set the candles
a-guttering, until rivers of yellow fat decorated the black bottles in
which they were set. The stench from these, and from the badly-trimmed
coal oil lamps down the center, blended disgustingly with the native
odor of the place, until the atmosphere became heavy, pungent, revolting
in the nostrils, and breathing became a labor after the sweet fresh air
of the prairie outside.

Soon after this the dancers began to arrive. They came in their strange
deckings of glaring colors, and many and varied were the types which
soon filled the room. There were old men and there were young men. There
were girls in their early teens, and toothless hags, decrepit and
faltering. Faces which, in wild loveliness, might have vied with the
white beauty of the daughters of the East. Faces seared and crumpled
with weight of years and nights of debauchery. Men were there of superb
physique, whilst others crouched huddled, with shuffling gait towards
the manger seats, to seek rest for their rotting bones, and ease for
their cramping muscles.

Many of the faces were marred by disease; small-pox was a prevalent
scourge amongst these people. The effect of the pure air of the prairie
was lost upon the germ-laden atmosphere which surrounded these dreadful
camps. Crime, too, was stamped on many of the faces of those gathering
in the reeking ballroom. The small bullet head with low, receding
forehead; the square set jaws and sagging lips; the shifty, twinkling
little eyes, narrow-set and of jetty hue; such faces were plentiful. Nor
were these features confined to the male sex alone. Truly it was a
motley gathering, and not pleasant to look upon.

All, as they came, were merry with anticipation; even the hags and the
rheumatism-