about four
o'clock
But when he 'd cleaned up his railroad job , and took to asking questions about the Territory , and Palomitas , and things generally -- and got the sort of answers Santa Fé had fixed should be give him , with some more throwed in -- Wood said his feet showed to be that tender he allowed it would a-hurt him with thick boots on to walk on boiled beans . Wood said he guessed he broke the lying record that afternoon ; and he said he reckoned if the little man swallowed half of what was give him , and there was n't much of anything he gagged at , he must a-thought Palomitas -- with its church twice Sundays and prayer-meetings regular three times a week , and its faro-bank with the preacher for dealer , and its Sunshine Club that was all mixed in with shooting-scrapes , and its Friendly Aid Society that attended mostly to what lynchings was needed -- was something like a bit of heaven that had broke out from the corral it belonged in and gone to grazing in hell 's front yard ! When he 'd stuffed him as much as was needed , Wood told him -- Santa Fé having fixed it that way -- there was a Mexican church about a thousand years old over in the Cañada that was worth looking at ; and he told him he 'd take him across on his buck-board to see it if he cared to go . He bit at that , just as Santa Fé counted on ; and about four o'clock off they went -- it was only three mile or so down to the Cañada -- in good time to get him back and give him what more was coming to him before he started off North again on the night train . Wood said the ride was real enjoyable -- the little man showing up as sensible as anybody when he got to the church and struck things he knowed about ; and it turned out he could talk French , and that pleased the padre -- he was that French one I 've spoke about , who was as white as they make 'em -- and so things went along well . * * * * * The wind had set in to blow down the valley cool and pleasant as they was getting along home ; and coming down on it , when they got about half a mile from Palomitas , they begun to hear shooting -- and it kept on , and more of it , the closer they come to town . Knowing what Santa Fé had set the boys up to , Wood said he pretty near laughed out when he heard it ; but he held in , he said -- and told the little man , when he asked what it meant , that it did n't mean nothing in particular : being only some sort of a shooting-scrape , like enough -- the same as often happened along about that time in the afternoon .