t
was generally taken for granted that Sanchia Murray knew what she was
about. If she chose to hunt in couple with Jim Courtot, that was her
business.

A town is something more than a group of men encamped. It connotes
many social facilities; first among which comes the store and, in
certain parts of the world, the saloon. Sanchia's Town was, upon the
first day, a town in these essentials. Shortly after dawn a string of
three six-horse teams crawled across the lowlands and, by a circuitous
way, to the camp. One wagon was heaped with bits of second-hand lumber
and a jumbled assortment of old tents and strips of canvas. In it,
also, were hammers, saws and nails. The two other wagons were filled
with boxes and bags--and kegs. There were two men to each team.
Arrived they gave immediate evidence that their employer had chosen
well. One of them, a crooked-eyed carpenter named Emberlee, directed,
hammer in hand. Before noon he had caused to grow up an architectural
monstrosity, hideous but sturdy. It was without floor, but it had
walls; wide gaps were doors and windows, but there was a canvas roof.

While his five companions brought their parcels into the place,
Emberlee climbed aloft and nailed up a big board upon which his own
hand, as the wagon had jostled along, had painted a sign. It spelled:
JIM COURTOT'S HOUSE. Then he descended and began a hurried grouping of
certain articles upon shelves and in corners. By the time the camp was
ready for a noon meal the word had flown about that at Jim Courtot's
House one could get food, water and a widely-known substitute for
whisky. Meantime Tony Moraga had come: he stood behind a bar hastily
made of two planks set on packing cases and sold a tin cup of water for
twenty-five cents, a glass of liquor for fifty. There were calls for
both. Emberlee, plainly a jack-of-all-trades, began displaying his
wares. He offered dried meats, tinned goods, crackers, cheese and
other comestibles at several times desert prices. And he, too, chinked
many a silver dollar and minted gold piece into his cash-box, because
when men rush to gold diggings they are not likely to go empty-handed.
Shortly after noon the three wagons returned to Big Run for more
supplies.

Obviously, though already Jim Courtot had departed from Dry Gulch when
Alan Howard came upon his agents, he was no less active than they with
rich gains in sight. It is to be doubted if the man slept at all
during the