Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/233

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VIII.
Mr. Fetherbee's Adventure.

MR. FETHERBEE was in his element,—a fact which the casual observer would have found it hard to believe; for he was a dapper little gentleman, dainty in his attire and presumably fastidious as to his surroundings, and these last were, in the present instance, hardly calculated to suit a fastidious taste. In a word, Mr. Fetherbee was "doing" Lame Gulch, doing it from the tourist's standpoint, delighting in every distinctive feature of the rough-and-ready, sordid, picturesque, "rustling" young mining-camp.

He was a popular little man, and he had been received with open arms, so to speak, by the Springtown contingent, when he had put in an appearance the day before at the Mountain Lion. He had arrived in a state of high good humor, induced by the stage ride from the railroad terminus, which he had accom-