strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance;
devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy
at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the
saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking
likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.

By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The
heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod
shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at
extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and
liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely
suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a
lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through
which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without.
When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled
with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued;
it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which
new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by
_habitués_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to
the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared
whence they had come.

But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points
of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of
prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but
radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust,
penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from
cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the
sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an
imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of