MY BLOODY MA SSA CRE. 



245 



created. It was the talk of the town, it was the talk of the Territory. Most of 

 the citizens dropped gently into it at breakfast, and they never finislied their 

 meal. There was something about those minutely faithful details that was a 

 sufficing substitute for food. Few people that were able to read took food that 

 morning. Dan and I (Dan was my reportorial associate) took our seats on 

 either side of our customary table in the " Eagle Restaurant," and, as I unfolded 

 the shred they used to call a napkin in that establishment, I saw at the next 

 table two stalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandruff sprinkled 



about their cloth- 

 sign and evidence 

 from the Truckee 

 The one facing me 

 paper folded to a 

 and I knew, with- 

 that that strip rep- 

 umn that con- 

 financial satire, 

 was excitedly 

 that the heedless 

 was skipping with 

 order to get to the 

 quickly as possi- 

 missing the guide- 

 up to warn him 



ing which was the 

 that they were in 

 with a load of hay. 

 had the morning 

 long narrow strip, 

 out any telling, 

 resented the col- 

 tained my pleasant 

 From the way he 

 mumbling, I saw 

 son of a hay-mow 

 all his might, in 

 bloody details as 

 ble ; and so he was 

 boards I had set 



that the whole 



thing was a fraud. Presently his eyes spread wide open, just as his jaws swung 

 asunder to take in a potato approaching it on a fork ; the potato halted, the 

 face lit up redly, and the whole man was on fire with excitement. Then he 

 broke into a disjointed checking off of the particulars — his potato cooling in 

 mid-air meantime, and his mouth making a reach for it occasionally, but always 

 bringing up suddenly against a new and still more direful performance of my 

 hero. At last he looked his stunned and rigid comrade impressively in the face, 

 *nd said, with an expression of concentrated awe — 



