Wal, the next Sunday night, the school-house was chuck full. She wasn't there--no, Monkey Mike tole me she was visitin' down to Goldstone; but, a-course, all the _rest_ of the women folks was. And about forty-'leven cow-punchers was on hand, and Buckshot, and Rawson and Dutchy,--yas, ma'am, _Dutchy,_ we rounded _him_ up. Do y' think after such a come-off we was goin' to let that limburger run any compytition place agin our parson? And that night the parson stands up on the platform, his face as shiny as a milk-pan, and all smiles, and he looked over that cattle-town bunch and says, "I take fer my text this evenin', 'And the calf, and the young lion and the fatlin' shall lie down in peace t'gether.'" CHAPTER THREE THE PRETTIEST GAL AND THE HOMELIEST MAN I'M just square enough to own _up_ it was one on me. But far's that par_tic_ular mix-up goes, I can _afford_ to be honest, and let anybody snicker that wants to--seein' the way the hull thing turned out. 'Cause how about Doc Simpson? Didn't I git bulge Number Two on him? And how about the little gal? Didn't it give me my first chanst? _Course,_ it did! And now, sometimes, when I want to feel happier'n a frog in a puddle, just a-thinkin' it all over, I lean back, shut my two eyes, and say, "Ladies and gents, this is where you git the Blackfoot Injun Root-ee, the Pain Balm, the Cough Balsam, the Magic Salve and the Worm Destroyer--the fi-i-ive remedies fer two dollars!" That medicine show follered the dawg fight. It hit Briggs City towards sundown one day, in a prairie-schooner drawed by two big, white mules, and druv up to the eatin'-house. Out got a smooth-faced, middle-aged feller in a linen duster and half a' acre of hat--kinda part judge, part scout, y' savvy; out got two youngish fellers in fancy vests and grey dicers; next, a' Injun in a blanket, and a lady in a yalla-striped shirtwaist. Wal, sir, it was just like they'd struck that town to start things a-movin' fer me! The show hired the hall over Silverstein's store. Then one of them fancy vests walked up and down Front Street, givin' out hand-bills. The other sent word to all the ranches clost by, and the Injun went 'round to them scattered houses over where the parson and Doc Trowbridge lives. Them hand-bills read somethin' like this: The _Re_nowned Blackfoot Medicine Company Gives Its First Performance T'Night! Grand Open-Air Band Concert. Come One, Come All. Free! Free! Free! 3--The Marvellous Murrays--3. To-Ko, the Human Snake, The World Has Not His Equal. Miss Vera de Mille In Bewitchin' Song and Dance. Amuricaw's Greatest Nigger Impersynater. The Fav'rite Banjoist of the Sunny South. Injun Shadda Pictures,--and a hull lot more I cain't just _re_call. When I seen that such a big bunch was a-goin' to preform, I walked over and peeked into that schooner. I figgered, y' savvy, that they was some more people in it that hadn't come out yet. But they wasn't--only boxes and boxes of bottles.