account of herself, she’d learned hotel-keeping through being a sutler’s wife in the war. What sutling had had to do with it was left to guess at, and there was opinions as to how much her training in hoteling had done for her; but it was allowed she’d learned a heap of other things––of one sort and another––and her name of Tenderfoot was give her because them fat feet of hers, in the course of her travels, had got that hard I reckon she wouldn’t a-noticed it walking on red-hot point-upwards ten-penny nails!

In the Forest Queen bar-room was the biggest bank there was in town. Blister Mike––he was Irish, Blister was, and Sal’s bar-keep––had some sort of a share in it; but it was run by a feller who’d got the name of Santa Fé Charley, he having had a bank over in Santa Fé afore Sal give him the offer to come 11 across to Palomitas and take charge. He was one of the blue-eyed quiet kind, Charley was, that’s not wholesome to monkey with; the sort that’s extra particular about being polite and nice-spoken––and never makes no mistakes, when shooting-time comes, about shooting to kill. When he was sober, though––and he had to keep sober, mostly, or his business would a-suffered––he wasn’t hunting after rumpusses: all he did was to keep ready for ’em, and hold his end up when they come along. He had the habit––same as some other of the best card sharps I’ve met with––of dressing himself in black, real stylish: wearing a long-tail coat and a boiled shirt and white tie, and having a toney wide-brimmed black felt hat that touched him off fine. With them regular fire-escape clothes on, folks was apt to take him for one; and, when they did, he always met ’em half-way by letting on preaching was his business––till he got ’em on the other side of the table and begun to shake down what cards he needed from up inside them black coat-sleeves. Mostly they ended by thinking that 12 maybe preaching wasn’t just what you might call his strongest hold.

It helped him in his work more’n a little, sometimes, dressing up that way and talking to suit, like he knowed how to, real high-toned talk; but I do believe for a fact he enjoyed the dollars he got out of it less ’n he did the fun it give him making fools of folks by setting up rigs on ’em––he truly being the greatest hand at rigging I ever seen. Somehow––not having the comfort of being able to get drunk half as often as he wanted to––it seemed like he give himself the let-out he needed in them queer antics; and, for certain, he managed ’em always so they went with a hum. When him and the Sage-Brush Hen played partners in rigging anybody––as they was apt to, the Hen being much such another and so special friends with Charley she’d come on after him from Santa Fé––there mostly was a real down spirited game!

She was what you might call the leading lady in the Forest Queen dance-hall, the Sage-Brush Hen was; and if you wanted fun, and had to choose between her and a 13 basket of monkeys, all I’ve got to say is––nobody’d ever a-took the monkeys who knowed the Hen! That girl was up to more queer tricks than anybody of her size and shape––she had a powerful fine shape, the Hen had––I’ve ever laid eyes on; and she’d run ’em in you so slick and quiet––keeping as demure as a cat after birds while she was doing it––you’d never suspicion anything was happening till you found the whole town laughing its head off at you for being so many kinds of a fool!

Things wasn’t any time what you might call too extra quiet in Palomitas; but when them two––the Hen and Santa Fé––started in together to run any racket you may bet your life there was a first-class circus from the word go! Grass didn’t grow much under their feet, either. The very minute the Hen struck the town––coming on after Santa Fé, same as I’ve said, and him waiting for her when she got there––they went at their monkey-shining, finishing two-handed what the Hen had started as a lone-hand game. Right along from then on they kept things moving 14 spirited, one way and another, without much of a let-up. And they ended off––the day the two of ’em, owing to circumstances, lit out together––by setting up on all of us what I reckon was the best rig ever set up on anybody anywheres since rigs was begun!

Palomitas was a purer town, Cherry said––it was him led off in the purifying––after we was shut of ’em, and of some others that was fired for company; and I won’t say he wasn’t right in making out it was a better town, maybe, when we’d got it so blame pure. But they had their good points, the Hen and Santa Fé had––and after they was purified out of it some of us didn’t never quite feel as if the place was just the same.

The Hen blew in one day on Hill’s coach, coming from Santa Fé, setting up on the box with him––Hill run his coach all the time the track was stuck at Palomitas, it being quicker for Santa Fé folks going up that way to Pueblo and Denver and Leadville than taking the Atchison out to El Moro and changing to the Narrow Gauge––and she was so all over dust that Wood sung out to him: “Where’d you get your Sage-Brush Hen from?” And the name stuck.

More folks in Palomitas had names that had tumbled to ’em like that than the kind that had come regular. And even when they sounded regular they likely wasn’t. Regular 16 names pretty often got lost coming across the Plains in them days––more’n a few finding it better, about as they got to the Missouri, to leave behind what they’d been called by back East and draw something new from the pack. Making some sort of a change was apt to be wholesomer and often saved talk.

Hill said the Hen was more fun coming across from Santa Fé than anything he’d ever got up against; and she was all the funnier, he said, because when he picked her up at the Fonda she looked like as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and started in with her monkey-shines so sort of quiet and demure. Along with her, waiting at the Fonda, was an old gent with spectacles who turned out to be a mine sharp––one of them fellows the Government sends out to the Territory to write up serious in books all the fool stories prospectors and such unload on ’em: the kind that needs to be led, and ’ll eat out of your hand. The Hen and the old gent and Hill had the box-seat, the Hen in between; and she was that particular about her skirts climbing up, and about making 17 room after she got there, that Hill said he sized her up himself for an officer’s wife going East.

Except to say thank you, and talk polite that way, she didn’t open her head till they’d got clear of the town and begun to go slow in that first bit of bad road among the sandhills; and it was the old gent speaking to her––telling her it was a fine day, and he hoped she liked it––that set her stamps to working a little then. She allowed the weather was about what it ought to be, and said she was much obliged and it suited her; and then she got her tongue in behind her teeth again as if she meant to keep it there––till the old gent took a fresh start by asking her if she’d been in the Territory long. She said polite she hadn’t, and was quiet for a minute. Then she got out her pocket-handkerchief and put it up to her eyes and said she’d been in it longer’n she wanted, and was glad she was going away. Hill said her talking that way made him feel kind of curious himself; but