ouse, everywhere. He
implored us to call for whatever pleased us, and as many times as we
should please. He ordered the town to be searched for more citizens to
come and help him pay his bet. But changing his mind, kegs and bottles
were now carried along with us. We had found three fiddlers, and these
played busily for us; and thus we set out to visit all cabins and houses
where people might still by some miracle be asleep. The first man put
out his head to decline. But such a possibility had been foreseen by
the proprietor of the store. This seemingly respectable man now came
dragging some sort of apparatus from his place, helped by the Virginian.
The cow-boys cheered, for they knew what this was. The man in his window
likewise recognized it, and uttering a groan, came immediately out and
joined us. What it was, I also learned in a few minutes. For we found
a house where the people made no sign at either our fiddlers or our
knocking. And then the infernal machine was set to work. Its parts
seemed to be no more than an empty keg and a plank. Some citizen
informed me that I should soon have a new idea of noise; and I nerved
myself for something severe in the way of gunpowder. But the Virginian
and the proprietor now sat on the ground holding the keg braced, and two
others got down apparently to play see-saw over the top of it with the
plank. But the keg and plank had been rubbed with rosin, and they drew
the plank back and forth over the keg. Do you know the sound made in
a narrow street by a dray loaded with strips of iron? That noise is a
lullaby compared with the staggering, blinding bellow which rose from
the keg. If you were to try it in your native town, you would not merely
be arrested, you would be hanged, and everybody would be glad, and the
clergyman would not bury you. My head, my teeth, the whole system of my
bones leaped and chattered at the din, and out of the house like drops
squirted from a lemon came a man and his wife. No time was given them.
They were swept along with the rest; and having been routed from their
own bed, they now became most furious in assailing the remaining homes
of Medicine Bow. Everybody was to come out. Many were now riding horses
at top speed out into the plains and back, while the procession of the
plank and keg continued its work, and the fiddlers played incessantly.

Suddenly there was a quiet. I did not see who brought the message; but
the word ran among us that there was a wom