Matty & Nickelby were now west of Omaha and riding along the Colorado River, when they felt it was time for a break. An old diner was in their sights; and after riding for sixteen hours it was just what the medicine man had ordered. As they walked into the restaurant strung out from the road, they could feel the eyes upon them as they were shaking off the dirt and cold. Since they felt a million miles away from their ole homesteads back east, they felt footloose & fancy-free.

The new west was a growing and uncharted region of wild buffalo, untamed stallions, rustled oxen, ground critters and the like, so the young bucks made the decision to rest their weary heads for a few. The only hotel in this ole west town, called the “Lamplighter,” was at the north end of some ten or so shops. The fellas didn’t have to wrangle with the idea of some shut eye for long; “what’s this dust-town called?” Matty inquired to the tall drink of water leaning against the weathered post. “Laramie,” said the straw-hat wearin’ character, as he barely raised his head to notice. Well, alrighty then, was Nickelby’s rebuttal, as they moseyed past the cowboy into the Shangri-La.

Matty spit out the ten mile-trail or so piece of straw that he had been knawen on; “Let’s have the tallest milk you got in this place; and I want it shaken, not stirred–please nice lady.” After hearin’ what his older brother had requested, Nickelby went to work: “Ya, me and him, we been out here longer than it takes a bear to hibernate in the cold season, and I could eat a herd full of cattle “bout now.” “Why don”t ya give me a plate of flapjacks higher than them thar Rocky Mountains–if it’s not too much trouble?”

The couple of days that the Brother’s McDammeier had stayed in that lonesome ole town did “em a “wild-west world of good,’ and they were soon off to a new destination, one that was still unknown….but held their dreams for a new life of prosperity and un-rivaled brotherhood, that would stand the test of time….