"Is, is it?" snorted Youbet. "Huh! You wouldn’t ’a’ thought so, if you was one of us eight. Well, I set right down an’ writ a long letter—took six cents’ worth of stamps—an’ gave our views regardin’ wire fences in general an’ this one of ourn in particular. I hated fences, an’ do yet; an’ so ’d my boys hate ’em, an’ they do yet. "In due time, I got a answer, which come for two cents. It says: ’Build that fence.’ "I sent Charley over to Mesquite to look over them cars of wire. He saw ’em, both of ’em. An’ th’ agent saw him. "Th’ agent was a’ important man, an’ he grabs Charley quick. ’Hey, you Two-X-Two puncher—you get that wire home quick. It went past here three times before they switched it, an’ I ’ve been gettin’ blazes from th’ company ever since. We needs th’ cars.’ "’Don’t belong to me,’ says Charley. ’I shore don’t want it. I ’m eatin’ beans an’ bacon instead.’ "’You send for that wire!’ yells th’ agent, wild-like. "Charley winks. ’Can’t you keep it passin’ this station till it snows hard? Have a drink.’ "Well, th’ agent wouldn’t drink, an’ he wouldn’t send that pore wire out into a cold world no more; an’ so Charley comes home an’ reports, him lookin’ wanlike. When he told us, he looked sort of funny, an’ blurts out that his mother went an’ died up in Laramie, an’ he must shore ’nuff rustle up there an’ bury her. He went. "Then Fred Ball begun to have pains in his stomach, an’ said it was appendix somethin’, what he had been readin’ about in th’ papers. He had to go to Denver, an’ get a good doctor, or he ’d shore die. He went. "Carson had to go to Santa Fé to keep some of his numerous city lots from bein’ sold off by th’ sheriff. He went. "Th’ rest, bein’ handicapped by th’ good start th’ others had made in corrallin’ all th’ excuses, said they ’d go for th’ wire. They went. "I waited four days, an’ then I went after ’em. When I got to th’ station, I sees th’ agent out sizin’ up our wire; an’ when I hails, he jumps my way quick, an’ grabs my laig tight. "’You take that wire home!’ he yells. "’Shore,’ says I soothingly. ’You looks mad,’ I adds. "’Mad! Mad!’ he shouts, hoppin’ round, but hangin’ onto my laig like grim death. ’Mad! I ’m goin’ _loco_—crazy! I can’t sleep! There ’s twenty letters an’ messages on my table, tellin’ me to get that wire off’n th’ cars an’ send th’ empties back on th’ next freight! You’ve got to take it—_got to_!’" The bartender shocked his nervous system by drinking plain water by mistake, but he listened eagerly. "Yes? What then?" "Well, then I asks him where I can find my men, an’ team, an’ waggin’. He tells me. Th’ team an’ waggin is in a corral down th’ street, but he don’t know where th’ men are. They held a gun to his head, an’ said they ’d kill him if he didn’t flag th’ next train for ’em. Th’ next train was a through express, carryin’ mail. He was n’t dead.