re, Mamma!
Did you ever? And if you could see Tom in his flannel shirt and his
shabbiest old grey suit, and a felt slouch hat, you could not tell him
from one of these lovely miners. Octavia says she is getting in love
with him again on account of it. Her one unfortunately had to stay in
Osages, but the one with the beautiful teeth has come in his place.

We couldn't wash or brush up much because we had only each either a
cracked pudding dish or an old cake tin to wash in, but we did our best
and started off for our dinner. Three of the most prominent young mine
owners had invited us to a feast, and when we got to the tent in which
it was held we found that was the chief restaurant, and lots of miners
were already there at different tables.

Ours was a long one in the middle and much grander than the rest,
because it had a bit of marbled white oil cloth on it for a cloth. The
dears all the people were, and the kind generous spirit to ask us to a
feast when food was so scarce and expensive! And fancy, Mamma, in the
middle was a bouquet of yellow daisies, and they were worth their weight
in gold--yellow daisies brought over ninety miles of desert, and how
many hundred miles of train!

None of the people at the other tables took the slightest notice of our
party; beyond a friendly greeting to those they knew, they did not even
glance our way; think of the beautiful manners, and the difference, too,
if these had been rough men of any other country in an eating house. I
tell you these Westerners are a thing apart for courtesy and respect to
women--a lesson to all the world; and the food was not at all awful, and
we had the best of champagne! while the tent was lit by electric light,
and had a board floor and benches for seats. We were so gay at dinner,
and while we were finishing, news came, I do not know how, that the
desperado, Curly Grainger, and his comrades, were in the camp. The man
next me told me, and I never thought to tell Nelson, who was at my other
side, which was foolish, as events proved.

After it, when they had made some speeches to bid us all welcome, we
went out to see the sights--principally a private gambling saloon where
they were playing extremely high, about seven men intent on poker, some
with green shades over their eyes of talc, which gave the strangest
livid glow on their faces, and made them look like dead men. After each
round a felt-slippered bar-tender would slip in and give them all drinks