her."

He smiled at her. "I doubt if yu' can help missin' me," he remarked. And
he was gone at once, galloping on his Monte horse.

Which of the two won a victory this day?

XIII. THE GAME AND THE NATION--ACT FIRST

There can be no doubt of this: All America is divided into two
classes,--the quality and the equality.

The latter will always recognize the former when mistaken for it. Both
will be with us until our women bear nothing but hangs.

It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans
acknowledged the ETERNAL INEQUALITY of man. For by it we abolished a
cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little mere artificially held up
in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and
our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature.
Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal
liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and
gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, "Let the best man win, whoever
he is." Let the best man win! That is America's word. That is true
democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same
thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight.

The above reflections occurred to me before reaching Billings, Montana,
some three weeks after I had unexpectedly met the Virginian at Omaha,
Nebraska. I had not known of that trust given to him by Judge Henry,
which was taking him East. I was looking to ride with him before long
among the clean hills of Sunk Creek. I supposed he was there. But I came
upon him one morning in Colonel Cyrus Jones's eating palace.

Did you know the palace? It stood in Omaha, near the trains, and it was
ten years old (which is middle-aged in Omaha) when I first saw it. It
was a shell of wood, painted with golden emblems,--the steamboat, the
eagle, the Yosemite,--and a live bear ate gratuities at its entrance.
Weather permitting, it opened upon the world as a stage upon the
audience. You sat in Omaha's whole sight and dined, while Omaha's dust
came and settled upon the refreshments. It is gone the way of the Indian
and the buffalo, for the West is growing old. You should have seen the
palace and sat there. In front of you passed rainbows of men,--Chinese,
Indian chiefs, Africans, General Miles, younger sons, Austrian nobility,
wide females in pink. Our continent drained prismatically through Omaha
once.

So I was passing that way