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“What’s the name of this town?”

“Louisville.”

“Kentucky?”

“Kentucky, no. Hear him!—Ohio.”

“Didn’t know there was a Louisville, Ohio.”

“Write it anyway. It isn’t the first time you’ve written what you don’t know.”

Then silence, save for the clicking of the telegraph instruments and the cracking of copy paper.

“Who was the man in the red saddle?”

No answer.

Again: “Who was the guy in the red saddle?”

No answer.

Another voice, in the same difficulty, roaring: “Who in hell was the man in the red saddle?”

Now everybody for a minute stops writing. Nobody knows.

Voice: “Call him Smith: the man of mystery: the great unknown.”

We did. The man in the red saddle was Smith the Great Unknown to the end of his silly part.

There was a small hotel in the place, with only two bedrooms available, and these had been selfishly seized by three magazine writers who had no telegraph stuff to file. They had retired. The rest of us took possession of a fairly large lounging room and settled ourselves for the night on cots, pallets and chairs.