The buildings were mostly box affairs, and built in the quickest possible way. But a palace does not make happiness, and I am sure that in the rough, frontier towns of those days there was lots of contentment and good cheer in the rudest shacks. The wind and the snow came in at the cracks in winter, and in summer the rain beat through and the red dust swirled along the floor, but we paid little attention to such things. Our skin was tough and we had many things to occupy our time. We were constantly in the open air, which hardened us until we suffered scarcely any annoyance from wind or weather, such as would have been looked upon as hardships not to be endured, by men living cooped up in cities, where there is rarely a chance to fill one's lungs with fresh air, and where heaviest clothing cannot compensate for lack of physical exercise. It is possible by exposure for men to toughen their skin and their bodies, just as they can toughen their hands. The Indian is a good example of this fact. [Illustration: _"Billy" Dixon, in His Prime as a Scout and Plainsman._] At this time Dodge City was the terminus of the Santa Fe railroad. The railroad company was still grading, and had moved as far west as the State line, at Granada, Kas., where building stopped for about a year. Dodge City sprang up like a mushroom. Buildings went up day and night, and in a month's time the first dozen houses had been increased to a small town. Like moths drawn by the flame of a lamp, a picturesque lot of men gathered at Dodge. Practically all of them were looking for adventure and excitement, rather than for opportunities to become preachers, lawyers or merchants. They came from the border towns that dotted like beads that western fringe of civilization. Dodge City belonged mostly to the under-world in those days, and its ways were the ways of men and women who stayed up all night and slept all day. Buffalo-hunters, railroad graders, gamblers, dance hall actors and dancers and that nondescript class that lived without doing any kind of work predominated. But there were good men and women in Dodge, and as in most genuine American communities, they finally won out, despite its revelries and dissipations. The professional gun man that gave Dodge most of its reputation, especially in eastern States, did not ply his business as a business until later years.