His muscles played under his shining skin like those of a trained athlete.

Obedient to the lightest touch or word of his master, with ears in restless motion, he curvetted like a racer under the wire.
"Wouldn't know that horse was twelve years old, would you, gentlemen ?" said Reynolds.

"Well, so he is, and he has covered fifteen thousand miles o' trail." Mose was at his best.

With vivid tie flowing from the collar of his blue shirt, with a new hat properly crushed in on the crown in four places, with shining revolver at his hip, and his rope coiled at his right knee, he sat his splendid horse, haughty and impassive of countenance, responding to the greetings of the crowd only with a slight nod or a wave of the hand.
It seemed to him that the population of the whole State--at least its men--was assembled within the big stockade.

There were a few women--just enough to add decorum to the crowd.