the interests of peace that I canters over an' sees you-alls first. I ain't out to shake up Wolfville, nor give Red Dog a chance to criticise us none as a disorderly camp; but I asks you gents, as citizens an' members of the vig'lance committee, whether I'm to stand an' let this yere sharp round-up my music to hold his revels by, an' put it all over me nightly?'
"'I don't see no difference,' says Dan Boggs, 'between this convict a-stealin' of Hamilton's music, than if he goes an' stands up Old Monte an' the stage.'
"'The same bein' my idee exact,' says Texas Thompson. 'Yere's Hamilton caterin' to this camp with a dance-hall. It's a public good thing. If a gent's morose, an' his whiskey's slow placin' itse'f, he goes over to Hamilton's hurdy-gurdy an' finds relaxation an' relief. Now yere comes this stranger—an' I makes it fifty dollars even he's from Massachusetts—an' what does he do? Never antes nor sticks in a white chip, but purloins Hamilton's strains, an' pulls off his dances tharby. It's plumb wrong, an' what this party needs is hangin'.'
"'Oh, I don't know,' says Cherokee Hall, who's in on the talk. 'Hamilton's all right, an' a squar' man. All he wants is jestice. Now, while I deems the conduct of this stranger low an' ornery; still, comin' down to the turn, he's on his trail all right. As this sharp says: Who
