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 beast. His hope of seeing a mixup over the question was only secondary, however, to his sudden and keen interest in one of the contestants, which interest and curiosity increased with every step that he took drawing him nearer.

This man was garbed in what appeared to Dan Gustin, cowboy of the inter-mountain plains, the most astonishing garments that ever concealed the nakedness of a fellow-creature. To one of wider range of experience, the stranger would have appeared as nothing more extraordinary than a sailor of the United States navy, dressed as he had stepped from the deck of his ship, wide-flapping trouser legs, tight little blouse with its laced front and open collar, and that little cap which js neither useful nor ornamental, above all.

It was the headgear, especially, that held Dan's amazed attention, striking him with such immeasurable astonishment that his mouth fell open for want of a properly strong word to fill it. To Dan the man seemed some curious freak of overgrown child, for that sort of cap he had seen on the heads of very little boys in the officers' quarters at the post, even that very pattern of a suit, if suit it might properly be called. That any full-grown, man-shouldered male human being could be so poor in dignity as to appear in public and the light of day so trigged up, passed all bounds of credulity. But there he was, his little old fool cap pushed back like a three-year-old boy, his blunderbuss trousers flapping in the wind about his ankles, holding an argument with as much assurance as if he stood equal with any man that ever split the breeze.