te general,
on the aside I studied the company. It was cosmopolitan to the last
degree. Opposite me sat the hostess (Mollie) with her little Jennie,
dressed in their very best, the woman wearing a fashionable trained
skirt, pink silk waist and diamond brooch, while the little child wore
light tan cloth in city fashion, and looked very pretty. Below them sat
the regular boarders at the hotel, hotel clerk, the bartender, miners,
traders and the woman who kept the saloon. The latter appeared about
thirty years of age, dark, petite and pretty, richly and becomingly
gowned in garments which might have come along with her native tongue
from Paris. On our side of the long table, and opposite this woman, sat
the only other white woman besides myself present, and she, with her
husband, the two neighbors who had given us our first sleigh ride behind
the grey horse. On this side sat more miners and the few travelers who
happened to be at the hotel at this time. The clerk, next his employer,
who sat at my right, and the musician on my left, completed the number
of guests, with the exception of the one at the farther end of the
board, opposite the host. This was a young man in a heavy fur coat, his
head drooping low over his plate.

"Don't let H. fall upon the floor, boys," said the captain, as he saw
the pitiable plight of the young man. "Poor fellow, he has been
celebrating Christmas with a vengeance, and it was too much for him,
evidently. It don't take much to knock him out, though, and this wine,"
taking up his wine glass and looking through the liquid it contained,
"won't hurt a baby."

"Do you never take wine?" politely inquired the musician of me, as he
noticed that my wine glass remained untouched, and a glass of cold water
was my only beverage.

"I never do," said I firmly, but with a smile, as I noticed that both he
and the gentleman at my right barely touched theirs, while others drank
freely.

"Waiter, bring Mellie another bottle of that wine," called the
bartender, from the other side of the table, "those bottles don't hold
nothin' anyway, and a woman who can't empty more'n one of 'em ain't
much," and a second bottle was handed the female dispenser of grog, a
connoisseur of long standing, and one who could "stand up" under as much
as the next person. By this time the woman opposite her was considerably
along the road to hilarity, and shouts and laughter came from both,
called forth by the jests of their companions