“Milly,” said she at length to the black woman, whom she found in the kitchen, “you come help me get supper. It takes an awful lot of fried mush. And these men keep coming here, though I ain’t got this hotel really opened yet.”
When the party from the herd jogged into town the first man they met was McCoyne, and now he had news of his own.
“Wild Bill told me about the little trouble upstairs.” He nodded toward the Drovers’ Cottage. “One man seems to have left town. I didn’t want anybody to think we’ve got a tough town here. Fact is we haven’t got any courthouse or coroner or anything. We’ve got to hold an organization meeting and get these things fixed up before long. I just got a couple of men that was standing out near the door to go over and dig a good grave on the hill yonder; you can see it from here. First grave in Abilene, July 4, 1867. Well, Mr. Nabours, they buried your man fine; they fixed up some sort of a box for a coffin. I seen them two carry him over to the hill all right. I declare, I don’t believe there is a coffin in this whole town—our storekeepers is that negligent, got that poor a notion of goods. Now think of my getting so busy, forgetting to have our merchants order plenty of coffins! I don’t want Abilene to be back of no town in Kansas. You understand, in the hurry of getting things started, gentlemen, a man’s liable to overlook a lot of things.”
They informed McCoyne of the sale of the Del Sol herd. He shook each by the hand effusively.
“Didn’t I tell you”—to Nabours—“didn’t I say you’d find buyers up here in Abilene? Sold out, the first day you hit town! Sold out at twenty straight right through! More money than you ever seen before!”
“That ain’t no dream,” said Jim Nabours, taking a chew of tobacco. “Say, Mr. Pattison, you couldn’t raise some silver money, could you? This paper money is all right, of course; and if Dan McMasters says so, that paper on the bank is all right and it goes too. But silver is the only money that’s money in Texas. I don’t reckon my men would take any other kind, and I know old Sanchez wouldn’t. You can’t pay no Mexican nothing but silver.”
“You don’t need very much money,” smiled McMasters. “But, Jim, did you ever stop to figure how much money you’d have if you got it all in silver?”