“I’m damned if I will.” He put on the stamp with a hard pound of his fist, and threw the letter into the mail-box. Then, with his heart beating joyously, he walked out of the post-office. Inside his coat a note lay warm against his heart. On the corner stood a pawnbroker’s shop. The brightness of the gilding upon the three balls showed that it was a successful one. The place was crowded with men who were disposing of everything that duty, a mild sense of decency, or necessity did not for the moment require. Loring entered the shop, and elbowing his way to the desk, laid down his coat. The proprietor picked it up, prodded the cloth with his thumb-nail, shook his head over the worn lining, then said: “Two bits on that.” Stephen silently took the proffered quarter, and went out. “That means one meal, anyhow,” he thought. A gaudy sign attracted his attention: “Chinese-American Restaurant”—“All you can eat for two bits.” “I think that they do not lose much on their sign,” he reflected when, a few minutes later, seated at a counter, he gnawed at some bread and stew, and drank bitter coffee. “Any man who ate more than a quarter’s worth would die.” Having eaten, he sauntered over to the cashier’s window and nonchalantly slid his quarter across the counter. Then no longer a capitalist, but also no longer hungry, he stepped out into the street again. He looked to right and left wondering in what direction to turn his footsteps. The sight of a crowd in front of the post-office determined him. He questioned a man on the outskirts of the group, and found that the excitement was caused by a telegram, the contents of which was posted in the window. Working his way through the crowd, Loring reached a position whence he could make out the notice. The telegram was from the governor of Sonora, the Mexican province which lay just across the line from Dominion. “Outbreak of Yaquis. No troops near. Would deeply appreciate help from Dominion.” The crowd was laughing and cheering. “Me for Old Mexico!” called one. “Perhaps we’ll all be generals,” shouted another. The news had spread like wild-fire, and from every direction appeared groups of men, armed with Winchesters, shotguns, or Colts. All were rushing toward the Southern Pacific station. Stephen hurried up the street to a gun store, and by dint of hard persuasion obtained from the proprietor an old Spencer forty-five calibre, single shot carbine. “It will at least make a noise,” thought Loring. He joined a group of men who were on their way to the train. “I might as well go to Mexico as anywhere,” he reflected. “My responsibilities are not heavy just at present.” Within half an hour after the receipt of the telegram in Dominion, three hundred men, all armed to the teeth, were at the station. For in a region where the sheriff’s posse is one of the regular forms of entertainment, there are many men who joyously start upon an expedition of this kind.