Of course amusing incidents occurred now and then.  Usually these took place when I was hunting lost horses, for in hunting lost horses I was ordinarily alone, and occasionally had to travel a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away from my own country.  On one such occasion I reached a little cow town long after dark, stabled my horse in an empty outbuilding, and when I reached the hotel was informed in response to my request for a bed that I could have the last one left, as there was only one other man in it.  The room to which I was shown contained two double beds; one contained two men fast asleep, and the other only one man, also asleep.  This man proved to be a friend, one of the Bill Joneses whom I have previously mentioned.  I undressed according to the fashion of the day and place, that is, I put my trousers, boots, shaps, and gun down beside the bed, and turned in.  A couple of hours later I was awakened by the door being thrown open and a lantern flashed in my face, the light gleaming on the muzzle of a cocked .45.  Another man said to the lantern-bearer, “It ain’t him”; the next moment my bedfellow was covered with two guns, and addressed, “Now, Bill, don’t make a fuss, but come along quiet.”  “I’m not thinking of making a fuss,” said Bill.  “That’s right,” was the answer; “we’re your friends; we don’t want to hurt you; we just want you to come along, you know why.”  And Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with them.  Up to this time there had not been a sound from the other bed.  Now a match was scratched, a candle lit, and one of the men in the other bed looked round the room.  At this point I committed the breach of etiquette of asking questions.  “I wonder why they took Bill,” I said.  There was no answer, and I repeated, “I wonder why they took Bill.”  “Well,” said the man with the candle, dryly, “I reckon they wanted him,” and with that he blew out the candle and conversation ceased.  Later I discovered that Bill in a fit of playfulness had held up the Northern Pacific train at a near-by station by shooting at the feet of the conductor to make him dance.  This was purely a joke on Bill’s part, but the Northern Pacific people possessed a less robust sense of humor, and on their complaint the United States Marshal was sent after Bill, on the ground that by delaying the train he had interfered with the mails.

The only time I ever had serious trouble was at an even more primitive little hotel than the one in question.  It was also on an occasion when I was out after lost horses.  Below the hotel had merely a bar-room, a dining-room, and a lean-to kitchen; above was a loft with fifteen or twenty beds in it.  It was late in the evening when I reached the place.  I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked going in.  But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night.  Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don’t like.  A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity.  He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face.