*Lakeside wa was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church ac­commodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where ever­ybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside—unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a so­ciable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.*