Palomitas went along the same trail, and took the same pass over the divide. All through that year, while the end of the track hung there, things kept getting more and more uncomfortabler. When construction started up again--the little Englishman, in spite of the dose we give him, reported favorable on construction and the English stockholders put up the stake they was asked to--things got to be worse still. Right away, as soon as work begun, the place was jammed full of Greasers getting paid off every Saturday night, and all day Sunday being crazy drunk and knifing each other, and in between scrappings having their pay sucked out of 'em at the banks and dance-halls--and most of the boys going along about the same rate, except they used guns instead of knives to settle matters--so the town really was just about what you might call a quarter-section of hell's front yard. Being that way, it come to be seen there'd got to be a clean-up; and what was wanted for a starter was give by Santa Fé Charley shooting Bill Hart. There was no real use for the shooting. The two of 'em just got to jawing in Hart's store about which was the best of two brands of plug tobacco--Hart being behind the counter, and Charley, who had a bad jag on, setting out in the middle of the store on a nail-kag--and the first thing anybody knowed, Charley'd let go with his derringer through his pants-pocket and Hart was done for. If Santa Fé hadn't been on one of his tears at the time, the thing wouldn't a-happened--him and Hart always having been friendly, and 'specially so after the trouble they'd had together over Hart's aunt. But when it did happen--being so sort of needless, and Hart popular--most of us made our minds up something had got to be done. * * * * * Joe Cherry headed the reform movement. He had a bunch of sheep up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Cherry had, but was in town frequent and always bunked at Hart's store--him and Hart having knowed each other back East and being great friends. That made him take a 'special interest in the matter; and when he come a-riding in about an hour after things was over--likely he'd a-fixed Santa Fé himself if he'd been there when it happened--he got right up on his ear. He said he meant to square accounts for Bill's shooting, and he reckoned telegraph-poling Charley was about what was needed to square 'em; and he said it was a good time, with that for a starter, for rounding-up and firing all the toughs there was in town. The rest of us allowed Cherry's notions was reasonable, and it was seen there'd better be no fooling over 'em; and so we went straight on and had a meeting, with Cherry chairman, and fixed up a Committee--and the Committee begun business by corralling Santa Fé, and then set to work and made out a list of them that was to be fired.