In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature. He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man present depended on Billy's success. But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall. The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He promised the "opening ball" for May if possible. "That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or long. XXVIII LAFOND GOES EAST About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his daily programme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work was proceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote a great many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver of the stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he was about to leave for a short trip.