race, a prize-fight, or a community singing festival would make such a
cosmopolitan assembly.

All Manhattan came to look at the men who had lived and fought and
conquered under the limitless skies of the Far West, free men, wild
men--one of their shrill whoops banished distance and brought the
mountain desert into the very heart of the unromantic East.
Nevertheless from all these thrills these two men remained immune.

To be sure the smaller tilted his head back when the horses first swept
in, and the larger leaned to watch when Diaz, the wizard with the
lariat, commenced to whirl his rope; but in both cases their interest
held no longer than if they had been old vaudevillians watching a series
of familiar acts dressed up with new names.

The smaller, brown as if a thousand fierce suns and winds had tanned and
withered him, looked up at last to his burly companion with a faint
smile.

"They're bringing on the cream now, Drew, but I'm going to spoil the
dessert."

The other was a great, grey man whom age apparently had not weakened but
rather settled and hardened into an ironlike durability; the winds of
time or misfortune would have to break that stanch oak before it would
bend.

He said: "We've half an hour before our train leaves. Can you play your
hand in that time?"