It was built on the low flat of the Big Sandy, and was composed of log huts (beginning already to rot at the corners) and unpainted shanties of pine, gray as granite, under wind and sun.

There were two "hotels," where for "two bits" one could secure a dish of evil-smelling ham and eggs and some fried potatoes, and there were six saloons, where one could secure equally evil-minded whisky at ten cents a glass.

A couple of rude groceries completed the necessary equipment of a "cow-town." There was no allurement to vice in such a place as this so far as Mose was concerned, but a bunch of cowboys had just ridden in for "a good time," and to reach the post office he was forced to pass them.

They studied him narrowly in the dusk, and one fellow said: "That's Delmar's sheep herder; let's have some fun with him.

Let's convert him." "Oh, let him alone; he's only a kid." "Kid! He's big as he'll ever be.