214 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



up outside his house to-night and shoot him 

 when he comes in,' says he, ' and skip out 

 with the horse.' 



" < All right,' says I, 'that is what I '11 do,' 

 and I walked off. 



" So I went off to his house and I laid down 

 behind some sage-brushes to wait for him. 

 He was not at home, but I could see his wife 

 movin' about inside now and then, and I 

 waited and waited, and it growed darker, and 

 I begun to say to myself, ( Now here you are 

 lyin' out to shoot this man when he comes 

 home ; and it 's gettin' dark, and you don't 

 know him, and if you do shoot the next man 

 that comes into that house, like as not it 

 won't be the fellow you're after at all, but 

 some perfectly innocent man a-comin' there 

 after the other man's wife ! ' 



" So I up and saddled the bronc' and lit 

 out for home," concluded the narrator with 

 the air of one justly proud of his own self- 

 abnegating virtue. 



The " town " where the judge above- 

 mentioned dwelt was one of those squalid, 

 pretentiously named little clusters of make- 

 shift dwellings which on the edge of the wild 

 country spring up with the rapid growth of 

 mushrooms, and are often no longer lived. 

 In their earlier stages these towns are fre- 

 quently built entirely of canvas, and are sub- 

 ject to grotesque calamities. When the terri- 

 tory purchased from the Sioux, in the Dakotas, 

 a couple of years ago, was thrown open to 

 settlement, there was a furious inrush of men 



