There should have been clatter of kitchen tins; there should have been neighing of horses; there should have been the quiver and tingle of children's voices at play in the dusty streets.

But there was none of this.

The silence was as thick and oppressive as the unbroken dark of the night.

Even Butler's saloon was closed! This, however, was something which he would not believe, no matter what testimony his eyes gave him.

He rode up to a shuttered window and kicked it with his heel.
Only the echoes of that racket replied to him from the interior of the place.