Explore "Santa Fe's Partner" by Thomas A. Janvier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Hen blew in one day on Hill's coach, coming from Santa Fe, setting up on the box with him -- Hill run his coach all the time the track was stuck at Palomitas, it being quicker for Santa Fe folks going up that way to Pueblo and Denver and Leadville than taking the Atchison out to El Moro and changing to the Narrow Gauge -- and she was so all over dust that Wood sung out to him: "Where'd you get your Sage-Brush Hen from? " And the name stuck.
More folks in Palomitas had names that had tumbled to 'em like that than the kind that had come regular. And even when they sounded regular they likely wasn't. Regular names pretty often got lost coming across the Plains in them days -- more'n a few finding it better, about as they got to the Missouri, to leave behind what they'd been called by back East and draw something new from the pack. Making some sort of a change was apt to be wholesomer and often saved talk.