There are _dance-halls_ in many of the _little towns_ within the cow-boy’s range. They are usually built of sod or _adobe_, and are about fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. In one corner there is a bar; and in the back end of the building are several small rooms in which stay the female dancers. They are usually Mexican girls. Musicians are employed to stay here all the time; and every night some of the cow-boys, Mexicans, or miners come in,--often from twenty and thirty miles,--for a dance. At the end of each set each boy must take his partner to the bar. Drinks and cigars are usually two bits apiece, and the lowest is fifteen cents apiece or two for two bits. If it is found out that there are boys in who have much money, the bar-keeper posts the musicians and the sets are cut very short. As long as the boys will spend money the dance is kept up, if it is all night; but so soon as the money stops the dance stops. The profits are large, and among these reckless boys a shrewd hall-man often clears from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars in a single night. Knowing the character and disposition of the persons who attend these balls, and considering the attending circumstances upon these occasions, the scenes can be readily imagined. Desperadoes gather in from all directions, boys meet here to settle quarrels, and cow-boys and Mexicans being _natural_ enemies, there are often mighty lively times. Each boy is ambitious to be a _bad man_; and after they get pretty well fired with liquor the recklessness commences and the wild spirit begins to glitter. Six-shooters are jerked, knives are drawn, and with wild yells bottles and glasses are shot from the bar, lights are fired down, and the basest profanity floats out of the appertures of the earthly hell upon the prairie breeze. Old grudges are stirred up, bullies try to pick a quarrel from others and then strike them down and try to run the house. One boy will imagine himself insulted by some other, and getting his friends together a fight is begun. Boys are shot down upon the dancing-floor, and each man tries to be the bloodiest. The consequences of these wicked balls are often very bitter, and there are some sickening scenes to be viewed in the morning light. I recollect being at Las Animas, Colorado, one night when there was a dance at the old Alhambra (a Mexican dance-hall), and I went to the ball to see how things were carried on and to learn the Colorado styles. I got there early in the evening, and the Mexicans were having a big fandango in six-eight time. About nine o’clock the cow-boys began to gather in, when things began to warm up and the scene put on a new aspect. The cow-boys got wild with liquor, and riding around the hall yelling and shooting, they made the old _adobe_ dust fly like sand in a hurricane. Bullets whistled in every direction, and when one cut through my beard I concluded things were getting a little