“Masterson came to his feet like a flash, a gun in each hand, saying, ‘Stand up, you measly skunk, so I can see you.’  Half a dozen men rose in different parts of the house and cut loose at him, and as they did so the lights went out and the room filled with smoke.  Masterson was blazing away with two guns, which so lighted up the rostrum that we could see the professor crouching under the table.  Of course they were using blank cartridges, but the audience raised the long yell and poured out through the windows and doors, and the lecture was over.  A couple of police came in later, so McNulta said, escorted the professor to his room in the hotel, and quietly advised him that Dodge was hardly capable of appreciating anything so advanced as a lecture on the occult sciences.”

Breakfast over, Honeyman ran in the remuda, and we caught the best horses in our mounts, on which to pay our respects to Dodge.  Forrest detailed Rod Wheat to wrangle the horses, for we intended to take Honeyman with us.  As it was only about six miles over to the Saw Log, Quince advised that they graze along Duck Creek until after dinner, and then graze over to the former stream during the afternoon.  Before leaving, we rode over and looked out the trail after it left Duck, for it was quite possible that we might return during the night; and we requested McCann to hang out the lantern, elevated on the end of the wagon tongue, as a beacon.  After taking our bearings, we reined southward over the divide to Dodge.

“The very first thing I do,” said Quince Forrest, as we rode leisurely along, “after I get a shave and hair-cut and buy what few tricks I need, is to hunt up that gambler in the Long Branch, and ask him to take a drink with me—­I took the parting one on him.  Then I’ll simply set in and win back every dollar I lost there last year.  There’s something in this northern air that I breathe in this morning that tells me that this is my lucky day.  You other kids had better let the games alone and save your money to buy red silk handkerchiefs and soda water and such harmless jimcracks.”  The fact that The Rebel was ten years his senior never entered his mind as he gave us this fatherly advice, though to be sure the majority of us were his juniors in years.

On reaching Dodge, we rode up to the Wright House, where Flood met us and directed our cavalcade across the railroad to a livery stable, the proprietor of which was a friend of Lovell’s.  We unsaddled and turned our horses into a large corral, and while we were in the office of the livery, surrendering our artillery, Flood came in and handed each of us twenty-five dollars in gold, warning us that when that was gone no more would be advanced.  On receipt of the money, we scattered like partridges before a gunner.  Within an hour or two, we began to return to the stable by ones and twos, and were stowing into our saddle pockets our purchases, which ran from needles and thread to .45 cartridges, every mother’s