“‘Stranger,’ he says, ‘that question is beyond me. I’ve only been in your town four minutes, an’ yet thar seems to be a kind o’ prejewdyce ag’inst me in the minds of the ignorant few. But never mind,’ he concloods; ‘we’re all cap’ble of mistakes. My name’s Clay Allison, an’ these folks’ll know me better by an’ by. When they do know me, an’ have arrived at a complete onderstandin’ of my pecooliarities, they’ll walk ’round me like I was a swamp.’” Following this introduction, it would appear that Mr. Allison was taken into fellowship by Las Animas. The crippled foot and the consequent limp were lost sight of when he was in the saddle. When he was afoot they went verbally unnoticed, since it was his habit to use a Winchester for a crutch. After eight weeks in Las Animas, Mr. Allison felt as much at home as though he had founded the town. Also, he became nervously sensitive over the public well-being, and, mounted on a milk-white pony, which he called his “wah hoss,” rode into open court, and urged that convention of justice, then sitting, to adjourn. Mr. Allison made the point that a too persistent holding of court militated against a popular repose. Inasmuch as he accompanied his opinions with the crutch-Winchester aforesaid, their soundness was conceded by the presiding judge. The judge, as he ordered an adjournment, said that in the face of what practical arguments were presented by Mr. Allison he was driven to regard the whole theory of courts as at best but academic. Later, by two months, Mr. Allison was driven to slay the Las Animas marshal. In this adventure he again demonstrated the accurate workings of his mind. The marshal, just before he drifted into the infinite, had emptied the right barrel of a Greener 10-gauge into Mr. Allison’s brother, John. A shotgun has two barrels, and the jury convoked in the premises, basing decision on that second barrel and arguing from all the circumstances that the late officer was gunning for the entire Allison family, gave a verdict of self-defence. Mr. Allison was honourably acquitted, and the acquittal much encouraged his belief in justice. It showed him too the tolerant spirit of Las Animas, and he displayed his appreciation thereof by engaging in that rugged Western pastime known as “Standing the Town on Its Head.” Indeed, Mr. Allison made the bodily reversal of Las Animas a sacred duty to be performed twice a year; but since he invariably pitched upon Christmas and the Fourth of July for these pageantries, the public, so far from finding invidious fault, was inclined to join with him. In short, so much were Mr. Allison and Las Animas one in soul and sentiment, that the moment they had conquered the complete acquaintance of each other they—to employ a metaphor of the farms—“fell together like a shock of oats.” Mr. Allison was proud of Las Animas, while Las Animas looked upon Mr. Allison as the chief jewel in its crown.