“Yes, sir,” his new acquaintance continued, “they sure did have a lively time. The greasers were over there on the siding in their cars, and they just let go at ’em with their guns. Now and then they’d hit the station, for fun, you know. I guess maybe you can see the holes yet.” The young man pointed up at some scars among the shingles and a broken window in the upper story. “Sure enough they left their marks!” “What did they do to ’em?” Brainard asked naïvely, as they returned to the car when the conductor droned “all aboard.” “Who?” the stranger asked. “The police?” He waved a hand at the desolate stretch of sage brush backed by grim mountains and laughed. As the train moved off, he added, “Lord, I don’t know! They were still popping when my train pulled out. There weren’t many greasers fit to work in the mines. What was left after the reception must have walked home—a long ways.” Brainard was somewhat impressed with the possibilities of a country that could offer such a scrap, _en passant_, so to speak. The stranger invited him into his room and gave him another cigarette. “From New York?” he inquired. “Not a bad sort of place,” he observed tolerantly. “Ever been on the Coast? You’ve something to see.” “How is San Francisco since the earthquake?” Brainard inquired, thinking to come cautiously and guardedly to the topic of Krutzmacht. “It’s all there and more than ever,” the stranger cheerily responded. “You won’t find any large cracks,” he jested. “It’s queer that you all went straight back to the same ground and built over again.” “Why? It was home, wasn’t it? Folks always have a feeling for the place they’ve lived in, even if it has disadvantages. It’s only human!” Brainard reflected that this was a sentimental point of view he should hardly have expected from the practical sort of man opposite him. In the course of their conversation Brainard inquired about the graft prosecution then in full swing, which had attracted the notice even of eastern papers on account of the highly melodramatic flavor that a picturesque prosecuting attorney had given to the proceedings. The man from San Francisco readily gave his point of view, which was unfavorable to the virtuous citizens engaged in the task of civic purification. When Brainard asked about the celebrated prosecuting attorney, the stranger looked at him for the first time suspiciously, and said coldly: “Well, as that gentleman has just been parading up and down the state saying he was going to put me in state prison for the better part of my remaining years, I can’t say I have a high opinion of him.” “Indeed!” Brainard emitted feebly. The stranger was more mysterious than ever. He did not seem in the least like a candidate for state prison.