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OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK
Bar. And those miners wanted the most expensive drinks.
Champagne was their first thought.
More than once a flood of reminiscence, developed
through continuous imbibition, and the cropping up of
some subject that had been, or was possibly still disputable
among the men from the Still-Open Spaces, threatened
trouble. At least once a swift train of events beginning
with a slighting reference to the virtue, valor and dis–
cretion of "Bat" Masterson succeeded in starting a panic
in the Bar, because of the sudden materialization of the
subject of the reference, backed by his reputation for say–
ing the last word, and with a "gun."
"Bat" Masterson, a United States Marshal, long famous
in the Northwest, and a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, was
in New York at the time, but not in the hotel, when the
thing started that, after he did come in, was effective in
holding up trade and leaving the bartenders on duty keep–
ing company only with the bull and the bear and the lamb
on top the refrigerator table.
At a table in the middle of the room sat six big men,
some of them in wide-brimmed hats. Most of them were
mining men, and they were from Butte, Montana. Of the
group was Colonel "Dick" Plunkett, said to be a United
States Marshal.
They were talking about gold strikes, mining conditions
and individual exploits, law and order, jumping claims,
and other things mining men usually discussed at such
gatherings. Not a little egocentric hero-worship was voiced,
but the talk was mostly of what other fellows had done;
of "bad 'ffien" and shootings. And Masterson's name was
mentioned as having saved the expense of a lot of hangings
by
using his six-shooter.