e
spokesman of one party, "ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang
out in the hall yer, until you'r used to us." On another occasion, one
Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new house
and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him afterwards
at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon.

"You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of you
fellers was doin' the high-toned 'thankee, marm' business in the parlor.
I just came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the hall, without
lettin' on to say that I was there, and took up a Webster's dictionary
that was on the table and laid it open--keerless like, on my knees, ez
if I was sorter consultin' it--and kinder dozed off there, listenin' to
you fellows gassin' with the young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie
just snakin' music outer that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep.
Anyhow, I was there nigh on to two hours. It's mighty soothin', them
fashionable calls; sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow, and
sets him up again."

It would have been well if the new life of the Devil's Ford had shown
no other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its original
locaters. But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified by report, began
presently to flood the settlement with another class of adventurers.
A tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of old camps along the river
began to set towards Devil's Ford, in very much the same fashion as the
debris, drift, and alluvium had been carried down in bygone days and
cast upon its banks. A few immigrant wagons, diverted from the highways
of travel by the fame of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of
Devil's Spur and on the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their
sallow freight of alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children
and maimed and fever-stricken men. Against this rude form of domesticity
were opposed the chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of
a few single unattended women--happily seen more often at night behind
gilded bars than in the garish light of day--and an equal number of
pale-faced, dark-moustached, well-dressed, and suspiciously idle men.
A dozen rivals of Thompson's Saloon had sprung up along the narrow
main street. There were two new hotels--one a "Temperance House," whose
ascetic quality was confined only to the abnegation of whiskey--a rival
stage office, and a small one-storied building, from which the "Sierran
Bann