re, that the most
sanguine anticipations were indulged by the more youthful of the twenty
members of this sacred compact. The sites of a hotel, a bank, the
express company's office, stage office, and court-house, with other
necessary buildings, were all mapped out and supplemented by a theatre,
a public park, and a terrace along the river bank! It was only when
Clinton Grey, an intelligent but youthful member, on offering a plan of
the town with five avenues eighty feet wide, radiating from a central
plaza and the court-house, explained that "it could be commanded by
artillery in case of an armed attack upon the building," that it was
felt that a line must be drawn in anticipatory suggestion. Nevertheless,
although their determination was unabated, at the end of six months
little had been done beyond the building of a wagon road and the
importation of new machinery for the working of the lead. The
peculiarity of their design debarred any tentative or temporary efforts;
they wished the whole settlement to spring up in equal perfection,
so that the first stage-coach over the new road could arrive upon the
completed town. "We don't want to show up in a 'b'iled shirt' and a plug
hat, and our trousers stuck in our boots," said a figurative speaker.
Nevertheless, practical necessity compelled them to build the hotel
first for their own occupation, pending the erection of their private
dwellings on allotted sites. The hotel, a really elaborate structure
for the locality and period, was a marvel to the workmen and casual
teamsters. It was luxuriously fitted and furnished. Yet it was in
connection with this outlay that the event occurred which had a singular
effect upon the fancy of the members.

Washington Trigg, a Western member, who had brought up the architect and
builder from San Francisco, had returned in a state of excitement. He
had seen at an art exhibition in that city a small replica of a famous
statue of California, and, without consulting his fellow members, had
ordered a larger copy for the new settlement. He, however, made up for
his precipitancy by an extravagant description of his purchase, which
impressed even the most cautious. "It's the figger of a mighty pretty
girl, in them spirit clothes they allus wear, holding a divinin' rod for
findin' gold afore her in one hand; all the while she's hidin' behind
her, in the other hand, a branch o' thorns out of sight. The idea
bein'--don't you see?--that blamed old 'fo