To a newcomer Columbina certainly offered no special attractions. Only a few years before it had been nothing but a point where the ranchmen had shipped their steers on the railroad, with a tiny stockyard and a small ranchmen's hotel and saloon combined. Now the boom city, if such it might be called, consisted of a long straggling main street with a much dilapidated boardwalk on one side only. In the middle of the street the mud was all of a foot deep, and through this wagons and automobiles plowed along as best they could. All of the buildings were of wood, and none of them more than three stories in height. There were half a dozen general stores, the same number of eating and drinking places, and two buildings which were designated as hotels, O'Brian's being one and Smedley's the other. There was also a long, shed-like moving picture theater advertised to be open twice a week, in the evening. "I was advised by a man on the train to try the Smedley Hotel first," said Dick Rover. "He thought I'd find a better class of people there than at the O'Brian place. Wait till I ask the station master where the hotel is located." "You can't miss it," said the station man, when applied to. "It's down at the end of that boardwalk. If you go any further you'll sink into mud up to your knees," and he smiled feebly. "Any chance of our getting in there?" "Just as good a chance as getting in anywhere. They tell me O'Brian's place is so full they're falling out of the windows," and the station master chuckled over his little joke. "Anything in the way of a taxicab around here to take us and our baggage up there?" "Taxicab? The last man to run a taxicab was Jim Lumpkins, and now Jim's struck oil and he's so rich he won't do nothing. If you want to get up to Smedley's I reckon you'll have to hoof it." "Come on, Dad, let's walk up there," said Jack. "But your suitcases are pretty heavy," answered his father, with a smile. "Oh, we won't mind those," declared Fred. "We've hiked around with just as much to carry many times." "I sha'n't mind it myself," declared his uncle. "Campaigning in France was a splendid thing to harden one's muscles." They set off down the one business street of which Columbina boasted. They had to pick their way carefully along the dilapidated boardwalk. At one point they came opposite O'Brian's Hotel. Downstairs was a saloon, and in this a noisy bunch were talking and singing. "I don't know as I would care to stop there," remarked Randy. "It looks like rather a tough hole to me." "You are right," responded Jack. "I'd rather go to some private house, if I could find one, or else buy a tent and hire a place where we could pitch it." "Gee, that's an idea!" cried Andy. "I'd much rather go camping out and do my own cooking than put up with just any old thing."