by sheep-herders, ditch contractors, miners, emigrants, ranchmen, all the
wild industries of a country in the dawn of enterprise.

Business at the Ferry had shrunk since the railroad went through. The
house-staff consisted of Jimmy Breen, a Chinese cook of the bony, tartar
breed, sundry dogs, and a large bachelor cat that mooned about the empty
piazzas. In a young farming country, hungry for capital, Jimmy could not
do a cash business, but everything was grist that came to his mill; and he
was quick to distinguish the perennial dead beat from a genuine case of
hard luck.

"That's a good axe ye have there," pointing suggestively to a new one
sticking out of the rear baggage of an emigrant outfit. "Ye better l'ave
that with me for the dollar that's owing me. If ye have money to buy new
axes ye can't be broke entirely." Or: "Slip the halter on that calf behind
there. The mother hasn't enough to keep it alive. There's har'ly a
dollar's wort' of hide on its bones, but I'll take it to save it droppin'
on the road." Or, he would try sarcasm: "Well, we'll be shuttin' her down
in the spring. Then ye can go round be Walter's Ferry and see if they'll
trust ye there." Or: "Why wasn't ye workin' on the Ditch last winter?
Settin' smokin' your poipe in the tules, the wife and young ones packin'
sagebrush to kape ye warm!"

On the morning after their distinguished arrival, Jimmy's guests came down
late to a devastated breakfast-table. Little heaps of crumbs here and
there showed where earlier appetites had had their destined hour and gone
their way. At an impartial distance from the top and the foot of the table
stood the familiar group of sauce and pickle bottles, every brand dear to
the cowboy, including the "surrup-jug" adhering to its saucer. There was a
fresh-gathered bunch of wild phlox by Moya's plate in a tumbler printed