“I didn't,” returned Tom Rollins, quite casually, without looking up from his steaming boots; “I didn't start in night afore last to dance 'The Green Corn Dance' outer 'Hiawatha,' with feathers in my hair and a red blanket on my shoulders, round that family's new potato patch, in order that it might 'increase and multiply.' I didn't sing 'Sabbath Morning Bells' with an anvil accompaniment until twelve o'clock at night over at the Crossing, so that they might dream of their Happy Childhood's Home. It seems to me that it wasn't me did it. I might be mistaken--it was late--but I have the impression that it wasn't me.” From the silence that followed, this would seem to have been clearly a recent performance of the previous speaker, who, however, responded quite cheerfully: “An evenin' o' simple, childish gaiety don't count. We've got to start in again FAIR. What we want here is to clear up and encourage decent immigration, and get rid o' gamblers and blatherskites that are makin' this yer camp their happy hunting-ground. We don't want any more permiskus shootin'. We don't want any more paintin' the town red. We don't want any more swaggerin' galoots ridin' up to this grocery and emptyin' their six-shooters in the air afore they 'light. We want to put a stop to it peacefully and without a row--and we kin. We ain't got no bullies of our own to fight back, and they know it, so they know they won't get no credit bullyin' us; they'll leave, if we're only firm. It's all along of our cussed fool good-nature; they see it amuses us, and they'll keep it up as long as the whisky's free. What we want to do is, when the next man comes waltzin' along--” A distant clatter from the rocky hillside here mingled with the puff of damp air through the window. “Looks as ef we might hev a show even now,” said Tom Rollins, removing his feet from the stove as we all instinctively faced toward the window. “I reckon you're in with us in this, Mosby?” said Briggs, turning toward the proprietor of the grocery, who had been leaning listlessly against the wall behind his bar. “Arter the man's had a fair show,” said Mosby, cautiously. He deprecated the prevailing condition of things, but it was still an open question whether the families would prove as valuable customers as his present clients. “Everything in moderation, gentlemen.”