n a group," responded Kearney,
critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. "Why
don't you have a fountain instead?"

"Where'll you get the water?" demanded the first speaker, in return.
"You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing
for the camp--to say nothin' of its color."

"Leave that to me," said Kearney, with self-possession. "When I've built
that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that."

"Better mix it up, I reckon--have suthin' half statoo, half fountain,"
interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as "Maryland Joe," "and set
it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to give. Do
THAT, and you can count on me."

After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney
should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away,
at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain
erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning
finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent
of half a million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen
wearing patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any
doubt, reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming
enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already
before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the
North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for
centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon. They had barely
crossed the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich
men; what possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully
exploited their possessions? So confident were they of that ultimate
prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended
in engines and machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of
that precious water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to
yield. It seemed as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical
compensation gradually making its way back to the soil again through
ditch and flume and reservoir.

Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of August,
1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the
stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering,
upward-moving dust along the flank of