The only comfortable waiting place was the billiard room, which afforded shelter until two o'clock in the morning, up to which time whiskey, gambling, and swearing were blended in just and equal proportions. The room having furnished nearly all the revenue to be expected for that night, I was informed that I could sleep upon a billiard table temporarily unused. It then appeared that the billiard tables regularly served this double purpose. Enveloped in a blanket I appropriated the softest spot to be found, and as one by one the abandoned tables were occupied by guests, I became reconciled to my fate. The next night found me at Las Animas, in a so-called hotel, the partitions of which were made of canvas. Voices could easily be heard from room to room. When I was retiring, the proprietor informed me of the death of an old resident who had been in the colony more than a year, and was therefore an old settler. A little later the same now familiar voice was recognized in another room, as he declared to his wife, "I don't know what in the devil to do about that funeral. They say they are going to get a minister." "Why, what about it, Jim," replied the woman. "Wall, they expect me to run it, and if they have a minister I suppose they will want a Bible, and I don't know where in Hell to get one." "You ain't going there to hunt for one, are you?" said the woman. "I guess I could find one there as easy as I could in Las Animas," was the response. "But say! Didn't they have one when Hat Morrow was buried?" "I reckon they did, and I'll go right over and find out. If I'm to run the job, I'd like to do it in style." The man was soon heard to pass out and close the door. I did not learn the result of the landlord's quest for a Bible, but I was led to believe that in their hearts there was a latent feeling of reverence for that Book, which an emergency would awaken. The minister, however, may have brought a Bible with him. On our second day out from Denver our coach was stopped fully half an hour, not by bandits but by a herd of buffalo uncountable in number, which, in a solid body as closely massed as a flock of sheep, crossed the road moving southward on their annual migration. From that time for the two succeeding days there was not a moment when there were not many thousands of buffalo within range of our view. The hills in every direction as far as the eye could reach were dotted with those great, dark-moving objects. It would require no marksmanship at 50 or 100 yards to send our Spencer bullets into the mass without singling out any particular animal. Three buffaloes were left wounded by shots from a passenger who fired at short range from the coach into the first herd we encountered.