ry, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
comfort and content.

In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence--"to get some good of
their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
avenues are luxurious homes--absurdly pretentious in some
instances--which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
said.

Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
don't _interest_ me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do