Santa Fe loomed up before him several days later and he entered it
shortly before noon. At this time the old Spanish city was a bundle of
high-strung nerves, and certain parts of it were calculated to furnish
any and all kinds of excitement except revival meetings and church
fairs. Hopalong straddled a lively nerve before he had been in the
city an hour. Two local bad men, Slim Travennes and Tex Ewalt,
desiring to establish the fact that they were roaring prairie fires,
attempted to consume the placid and innocent stranger as he limped
across the plaza in search of a game of draw poker at the Black Hills
Emporium, with the result that they needed repairs, to the chagrin and
disgust of their immediate acquaintances, who endeavored to drown
their mortification and sorrow in rapid but somewhat wild gun play,
and soon remembered that they had pressing engagements elsewhere.
Hopalong reloaded his guns and proceeded to the Emporium, where he
found a game all prepared for him in every sense of the word. On the
third deal he objected to the way in which the dealer manipulated the
cards, and when the smoke cleared away he was the only occupant of the
room, except a dog belonging to the bartender that had intercepted a
stray bullet.
Hunting up the owner of the hound, he apologized for being the
indirect cause of the animal's death, deposited a sum of Mexican
dollars in that gentleman's palm and went on his way to Alameda, which
he entered shortly after dark, and where an insult, simmering in its
uncalled-for venom, met him as he limped across the floor of the local
dispensary on his way to the bar.
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