FRONTIER TYPES 9I 



wages of six months' grinding toil and lonely peril for three days' whoop- 

 ing carousal, spending their money on poisonous whisky or losing it over 

 greasy cards in the vile dance-houses. As already explained, they are in 

 the main good men ; and the disturbance they cause in a town is done 

 from sheer rough light-heartedness. They shoot off boot-heels or tall hats 

 occasionally, or make some obnoxious butt " dance " by shooting round his 

 feet ; but they rarely meddle in this way with men who have not themselves 



MAKING A TKNDERFOOT DANCE. 



played the fool. A fight in the streets is almost always a duel between 

 two men who bear each other malice ; it is only in a general melee in a 

 saloon that outsiders often get hurt, and then it is their own fault, for they 

 have no business to be there. One evening at Medora a cowboy spurred 

 his horse up the steps of a rickety "hotel " piazza into the bar-room, where 

 he began firing at the clock, the decanters, etc., the bartender meanwhile 

 taking one shot at him, which missed. When he had emptied his revolver 

 he threw down a roll of bank-notes on the counter, to pay for the damage 

 he had done, and galloped his horse out through the door, disappearing in 

 the darkness with loud yells to a rattling accompaniment of pistol shots 

 interchanged between himself and some passer-by who apparently began 

 firing out of pure desire to enter into the spirit of the occasion, for it was 

 the night of the Fourth of July, and all the country round about had come 

 into town for a spree. 

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