owner sat astride the submissive beast, and spoke short answers to
rare questions. Everybody talked politics, the crop failure, or the
last fight at the seat of some private war; but nobody spoke of a
Lewallen or a Stetson unless he knew his listener's heart, and said
it in a whisper. For nobody knew when the powder would flash, or
who had taken sides, or that a careless word might not array him
with one or the other faction.

A motley throng it was-in brown or gray homespun, with trousers
in cowhide boots, and slouched hats with brims curved according
to temperament, but with striking figures in it; the patriarch with
long, white hair, shorn even with the base of the neck, and bearded
only at the throat-a justice of the peace, and the sage of his district;
a little mountaineer with curling black hair and beard, and dark,
fine features; a grizzled giant with a head rugged enough to have
been carelessly chipped from stone; a bragging candidate claiming
everybody's notice; a square- shouldered fellow surging through
the crowd like a stranger; an open-faced, devil-may- care young
gallant on fire with moonshine; a skulking figure with brutish
mouth and shifting eyes. Indeed, every figure seemed distinct; for,
living apart from his neighbor, and troubling the law but little in
small matters of dispute, the mountaineer preserves independence,
and keeps the edges of his individuality unworn. Apparently there
was not a woman in town. Those that lived there kept housed, and
the fact was significant. Still, it was close to noon, and yet not a
Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen. The stores of Rufe and old
Jasper were at the extremities of the town, and the crowd did not
move those ways. It waited in the centre, and whetted impatience
by sly trips in twos and three to stables or side alleys for "mountain
dew." Now and then the sheriff, a little man with a mighty voice,