These preliminaries having been duly attended to, Mr. Moffat and his
indefatigable committee of arrangements proceeded to master the details
of decoration and entertainment, drawing heavily upon the limited
resources of the local merchants, and even invading private homes in
search after beautifying material. Jim Lane drove his buckboard one
hundred and sixty miles to Cheyenne to gather up certain needed
articles of adornment, the selection of which could not be safely
confided to the inartistic taste of the stage-driver. Upon his rapid
return journey loaded down with spoils, Peg Brace, a cow-puncher in the
"Bar O" gang, rode recklessly alongside his speeding wheels for the
greater portion of the distance, apparently in most jovial humor, and
so unusually inquisitive as to make Mr. Lane, as he later expressed it,
"plum tired." The persistent rider finally deserted him, however, at
the ford over the Sinsiniwa, shouting derisively back from a safe
distance that the Miners' Club was a lot of chumps, and promising them
a severe "jolt" in the near future.
Indeed, it was becoming more and more apparent that a decided feeling
of hostility was fast developing between the respective partisans of
Moffat and McNeil.
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