owes you; I want to pay it, too." "No," said Hopkins, "I haven't time
now, I always make out my bills the first of the month." "Well," said
Barnum, "you figure our bill up right now and do not include dinner for
any of us, for we are leaving you right now, and will never bring a
customer to this house again and never come here to get a passenger nor
any one's baggage. In fact, our teams will never come down the hill
again to this house, we're quittin'."

The smallpox had left old Barnum pretty weak physically, but had
evidently not weakened his will. He left Hopkins in the office figuring
up his account and he jumped a-straddle of a bare-backed mule and went
up on the hill and rented the new 40-room house, "The Bravadere," and
sub-rented enough rooms to pay the expenses of his company. He also got
a porter, bus and team and sent to the landing to meet every steam boat
to carry passengers and their baggage free of charge to his "new hotel"
on the hill. This new hotel got to be all the rage, and the old levee
hotel in the bottoms was doomed to be a "thing of the past." The old
Gillis hotel on the levee was bought in by the Peet Soap Factory. The
old "Bravadere" still stands in Kansas City, but boasts a new
brick front.

[Illustration: "UNCLE" DICK WOOTEN.]



CHAPTER XVI.

Uncle Dick Wooten Erects a Toll Gate. Major Pendelton Carries Cash in
Coach to Pay Troops.