ock was feeling too
happy and gay. He would shake hands with a Mexican with equal
enthusiasm, or a Chinaman, or a laborer off the railroad. They were
all his friends, whether he knew them or not, and he called on the
whole town to celebrate. The Mexican string band that had met him at
the train was chartered forthwith for the night, Woo Chong had an order
to bring all the grub in town and feed it to the crowd at the hotel;
but Hassayamp Hicks refused to take any man's money, he claimed that
the drinks were on him. And so, with the band playing "Paloma" on the
veranda and refreshments served free to the town, Rimrock Jones came
back, the first citizen of Gunsight, and took up his life with a bang.

He stood in the rotunda of the Hotel Tecolote and gazed admiringly at
the striped marble pillars that he had ordered at great expense, and
his answer was always the same.

"Why, sure not! I knowed that jury wouldn't convict. I picked them
myself by the look in their eye, and every man had to be ten years in
the Territory. A fine bunch of men--every one of 'em square--they can
have anything I've got. That's me! You know Rimrock! He never
forgets his friends! And he don't forget his enemies, either!"

And then came the cheers, the shouts of his friends. The only enemy he
had was dead.

Mary Fortune had a room on the second floor of the hotel--one of the
nicest of them all, now that the painters and paperhangers had finally
left--and she came down late in an evening gown. The marble steps,
which Rimrock had insisted upon having, led up and then turned to both
sides and as she came down, smiling, with her ear-'phone left off and
her hair in a glorious coil, Rimrock paused and his eyes grew big.

"By Joe, like that Queen picture!" he burst out impulsively and went
bounding to meet her half way. And Mary Fortune heard him, in spite of
her deafness; and understood--he meant the Empress Louise. He had seen
that picture of the beloved Empress tripping daintily down the stairs
and, for all she knew, those expensive marble steps might have been
built to give point to the compliment.

"You sure look the part!" he said in her ear as he gallantly escorted
her down. "And say, this hotel! Ain't it simply elegant? We'll show
those Gunsight folks who's who!"

"They're consumed with envy!" she answered, smiling. "I mean the
women, of course. I heard one of them say, just before I moved over,
that you'd built it here j