se in the
bottom of the shafts. But the miners had made common cause together, and
giving each so many ounces of gold or so many day's work had erected a
dam thirty feet high along the ledge of rock, and had cut a channel for
the Yuba along the lower slopes of the valley. Of course, when the rain
set in, as everybody knew, the dam would go, and the river diggings must
be abandoned till the water subsided and a fresh dam was made; but there
were two months before them yet, and every one hoped to be down to the
bed-rock before the water interrupted their work.

The hillside, both in the Yuba Valley and for some distance along
Pine-tree Gulch, was dotted by shanties and tents; the former
constructed for the most part of logs roughly squared, the walls being
some three feet in height, on which the sharp sloping roof was placed,
thatched in the first place with boughs, and made all snug, perhaps,
with an old sail stretched over all. The camp was quiet enough during
the day. The few women were away with their washing at the pools, a
quarter of a mile up the Gulch, and the only persons to be seen about
were the men told off for cooking for their respective parties.

But in the evening the camp was lively. Groups of men in red shirts and
corded trousers tied at the knee, in high boots, sat round blazing
fires, and talked of their prospects or discussed the news of the luck
at other camps. The sound of music came from two or three plank
erections which rose conspicuously above the huts of the diggers, and
were bright externally with the glories of white and coloured paints. To
and from these men were always sauntering, and it needed not the clink
of glasses and the sound of music to tell that they were the bars of the
camp.

Here, standing at the counter, or seated at numerous small tables, men
were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying but
scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion, save when
some well-known air was played, when all would join in a boisterous
chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door which led into a
room behind. Here there was comparative quiet, for men were gambling,
and gambling high.

Going backwards and forwards with liquors into the gambling-room of the
Imperial Saloon, which stood just where Pine-tree Gulch opened into Yuba
valley, was a lad, whose appearance had earned for him the name of
White-faced Dick.

White-faced Dick was not one of those w