t-goods.

Mr. Peters and his friends had sought wealth in the Black Hills, where
they had enthusiastically disfigured the earth in the fond expectation
of uncovering vast stores of virgin gold. Their hopes were of an
optimistic brand and had existed until the last canister of cornmeal
flour had been emptied by Mr. Cassidy's burro, which waited not upon
it's master's pleasure nor upon the ethics of the case. When Mr. Cassidy
had returned from exercising the animal and himself over two miles of
rocky hillside in the vain endeavor to give it his opinion of burros and
sundry chastisements, he was requested, as owner of the beast, to
give his counsel as to the best way of securing eighteen breakfasts.
Remembering that the animal was headed north when he last saw it and
that it was too old to eat, anyway, he suggested a plan which had
worked successfully at other times for other ends, namely, poker.
Mr. McAllister, an expert at the great American game, volunteered his
service in accordance with the spirit of the occasion and, half an hour
later, he and Mr. Cassidy drifted into Pell's poker parlors, which
were located in the rear of a Chinese laundry, where they gathered unto
themselves the wherewithal for the required breakfasts. An hour spent
in the card room of the "Hurrah" convinced its proprietor that they had
wasted their talents for the past six weeks in digging for gold.
The proof of this permitted the departure of the outfits with their
customary elan.

At Santa Fe the various individuals had gone their respective ways, to
reassemble at the ranch in the near future, and for several days they
had been drifting south in groups of twos and threes and, like chaff
upon a stream, had eddied into Alkaline, where Mr. Peters had found
them arduously engaged in postponing the final journey. After he had
gladdened their hearts and soothed their throats by making several pithy
remarks to the bartender, with whom he established their credit, he
cautioned them against letting any one harm them and, smiling at the
humor of his warning, left abruptly.

Cactus Springs was burdened with a zealous and initiative organization
known as vigilantes, whose duty it was to extend the courtesies of the
land to cattle thieves and the like. This organization boasted of the
name of Travennes' Terrors and of a muster roll of twenty. There was
also a boast that no one had ever escaped them which, if true, was in
many cases unfortunate. Mr. Slim T