These two old pistols made me feel important, established. I began to look about me. It was time I began to be somebody. My latest hero was the man that kept the bar in the hotel. He owned the building, leased the hotel, and ran the bar himself. He was a fat man, and he wore a fancy striped vest with a heavy gold watch chain across it and a twenty-dollar gold piece dangled from the chain for a charm. He had been out to California. It was the only twenty-dollar piece in the town. He was a small politician, the town fixer. When anybody got into any trouble and had to go before the justice of the peace, he went down to the hotel and saw “Cy” Near. Cy would say, “Leave it to me, that’s all, leave it to me.” When it was all over the fellow would come down to “Cy’s” and order drinks for everybody in sight, several times. Then he would say, “What do I owe you, Cy?” “Owe me? Owe me for what?” “Why, you know, Cy, for fixing up that little trouble.” “Oh, that’s what you mean. Say, you don’t owe me a thin dime, not a greasy nickel.” Cy would wave a fat arm in the air. “I don’t take money for helping my friends. I sell licker, good licker; that’s my business.” The chap would buy a few more rounds of drinks, thank Cy again, and start for the door. Cy would shout, “Hey, George, I forgot to tell you. I’m rafflin’ off a hoss an’ buggy and you’d better take a half dozen tickets. You stand to win a good rig.” Around election time Cy would round up all the fellows he could, remind them that he had befriended them, and say, “What do we care who’s President of the United States? What we want is a decent justice of the peace and town marshal.” I decided to pattern my life after Cy’s. He was a popular, successful man. I began swinging my arms about, talking in a loud, hoarse voice, wearing my hat on the back of my head. Cy smoked big cigars. I tried one, and gave up the notion of smoking, at least for a while. It was not long till my fancy for the saloon keeper changed. One evening when the train came in a single traveler got off. He was a tall, lean man, who walked like a soldier, erect and with a confident step. He had a short, stubby, gray mustache. He wore a gray suit, a gray hat, and held a pair of gloves in his hand. He walked quickly toward the front of the train and waited by the baggage car till a trunk was tossed out. An express man near by was told to take the trunk over to the hotel. I followed the gray man to the hotel. Presently the trunk was left in front and I went to inspect it. It was a leather trunk, with brass fittings, plastered over with stickers from many hotels and steamship lines. It was scratched and battered and travel-stained. The thing fascinated me. I stood around and felt it, read the stickers, some of them from foreign parts of the world, and wondered what kind of man he could be that possessed such a wonderful trunk.