raw clay and narrow, wood sidewalks; they were,
for the most part, unpainted, hasty erections of a
single story. A building labelled the Steel Spud
Hotel was more pretentious. The others were eating
houses, stores with small windows filled with a
threatening miscellany -- revolvers, leather slung
shots and brass knuckles, besides lumbering boots,
gaudy Mackinaw jackets, gleaming knives and ammunition.
Beyond the street a single car track ran
precariously over the green, and ended abruptly,
without roadbed or visible terminus; at one side was
a rude platform, on the other a great pile of bark,
rotting from long exposure -- the result of some artificial
condition of the market, the spite of powerful
and vindictive merchants.

A second hotel stood alone, beyond the car tracks,
and there Gordon removed the marks of his journey,
resettled his collar and the resplendent tie. He felt
in his coat for the revolver, in order to transfer it
to a more convenient pocket... Its bulk, apparently,
evaded his fingers. His search quickened -- it
had gone! He had lost it somewhere on his long,
devious passage of Cheap Mountain. Without it
he would be in the power of any spindling gambler
who faced a dishonest ace. It would be necessary
to procure another weapon before proceeding with
his purpose... ten dollars, perhaps fifteen; revolvers
were highly priced in the turbulent distant

[[54]]

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v?