Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/30

18 There were many of these rails, and they were always more or less occupied. Unless one happened to be a very recent and temporary tourist indeed, he never thought of walking even the shortest distances. Horses were extraordinarily cheap, either to buy or hire. All over the town horses, either under saddle or hitched to buggies, phaetons, or surries, dozed under the feathery pepper trees. If one wanted to go two blocks, he used a horse for that purpose. The length of Main Street was lined with them. Most people owned two or three and alternated them in the somnolent job of awaiting their master's pleasure. As a corollary to this state of affairs the saddler's shops were large, and fascinating with the smell of leather, the sight of carved, silver-mounted saddles, of braided rawhide bridles with long morrales, of inlaid spurs and horsehair work, of riatas, of horse-hair cinchas, of fancy cuartas and the like. There were also monstrous frame stables each accommodating hundreds of animals, with corrals and horse troughs and generally a lot of lolloping dogs stretched in the sunny dust, and Mexicans who smoked brown paper cigarettes. From these each morning a long procession set forth. One man would drive a phaeton and lead a half dozen saddle horses attached to the horns of each other's saddles; another would ride and lead another half dozen. In all directions they scattered out through the town, leaving them by ones and twos here and there at the iron pipe hitching rails. When all but one had been delivered, the Mexican boy rode back to the stable, sitting his saddle loosely with the inimitable grace of the "cowboy seat." At noon it was necessary to go after the vehicles. The saddle horses, however, returned of themselves. The only requirement was to tie the reins to the horns so the animals could not stop to graze, to throw the stirrips [sic] across the saddles and to slap the beasts on the rump: they returned staidly or friskily home. At noon and toward six o'clock the streets would be full of these riderless animals. The scheme was eminently labour-saving and picturesque; but was later prohibited by law.

From the door of the bank in the Clock Building a man issued, briskly drawing on his gloves. He was followed by a bareheaded clerk who continued talking to him while he un-