atform, with an open door through which the night air came
pleasantly. This was now the long-expected Territory, and time for roses
and jasmine to begin. Early in our talk I naturally spoke to Mr. Mowry
of Arizona's resources and her chance of becoming a State.

"We'd have got there by now," said he, "only Luke Jenks ain't half that
interested in Arizona as he is in Luke Jenks."

I reminded Mr. Mowry that I was a stranger here and unacquainted with
the prominent people.

"Well, Luke's as near a hog as you kin be and wear pants. Be with you in
a minute," added Mr. Mowry, and shambled from the room. This was because
a shot had been fired in a house across the railroad tracks. "I run two
places," he explained, returning quite soon from the house and taking up
the thread of his whiskey where he had dropped it. "Two outfits. This
side for toorists. Th' other pays better. I come here in 'sixty-two."

"I trust no one has been--hurt?" said I, inclining my head towards the
farther side of the railroad.

"Hurt?" My question for the moment conveyed nothing to him, and he
repeated the word, blinking with red eyes at me over the rim of his
lifted glass. "No, nobody's hurt. I've been here a long while, and seen
them as was hurt, though." Here he nodded at me depreciatingly, and I
felt how short was the time that I had been here. "Th' other side pays
better," he resumed, "as toorists mostly go to bed early. Six bits is
about the figger you can reckon they'll spend, if you know anything." He
nodded again, more solemn over his whiskey. "That kind's no help to
business. I've been in this Territory from the start, and Arizona ain't
what it was. Them mountains are named from me." And he pointed out of
the door. "Mowry's Peak. On the map." With this last august statement
his mind seemed to fade from the conversation, and he struck a
succession of matches along the table and various parts of his person.

"Has Mr. Jenks been in the Territory long?" I suggested, feeling the
silence weigh upon me.

"Luke? He's a hog. Him the people's choice! But the people of Arizona
ain't what they was. Are you interested in silver?"

"Yes," I answered, meaning the political question. But before I could
say what I meant he had revived into a vigor of attitude and a
wakefulness of eye of which I had not hitherto supposed him capable.

"You come here," said he; and, catching my arm, he took me out of the
door and along the track in the night, and round