Mr.McNeil, who was observing the preliminary proceedings with deep interest from a pile of lumber opposite, sarcastically intimated that under such circumstances the attendance of club members would be necessarily limited.

Mr.
Moffat's reply it is manifestly impossible to quote literally.

Mrs.
Guffy was employed to provide the requisite refreshments in the palatial dining-hall of the hotel, while Buck Mason, the vigilant town marshal, popularly supposed to know intimately the face of every "rounder" in the Territory, agreed to collect the cards of invitation at the door, and bar out obnoxious visitors.
These preliminaries having been duly attended to, Mr.Moffat and his indefatigable committee of arrangements proceeded to master the details of decoration and entertainment, drawing heavily upon the limited resources of the local merchants, and even invading private homes in search after beautifying material.

Jim Lane drove his buckboard one hundred and sixty miles to Cheyenne to gather up certain needed articles of adornment, the selection of which could not be safely confided to the inartistic taste of the stage-driver.

Upon his rapid return journey loaded down with spoils, Peg Brace, a cow-puncher in the "Bar O" gang, rode recklessly alongside his speeding wheels for the greater portion of the distance, apparently in most jovial humor, and so unusually inquisitive as to make Mr.Lane, as he later expressed it, "plum tired." The persistent rider finally deserted him, however, at the ford over the Sinsiniwa, shouting derisively back from a safe distance that the Miners' Club was a lot of chumps, and promising them a severe "jolt" in the near future.
Indeed, it was becoming more and more apparent that a decided feeling of hostility was fast developing between the respective partisans of Moffat and McNeil.