, he died, in the odor of sanctity and respectability, being
found one morning coiled up and stiff on the mat outside Miss Pinkey's
door. When the news was conveyed to us, we asked permission, the camp
being in a prosperous condition, to erect a stone over his grave. But
when it came to the inscription we could only think of the two words
murmured to him by Miss Pinkey, which we always believe effected his
conversion:

"GOOD Dog!"

A MOTHER OF FIVE

She was a mother--and a rather exemplary one--of five children, although
her own age was barely nine. Two of these children were twins, and she
generally alluded to them as "Mr. Amplach's children," referring to an
exceedingly respectable gentleman in the next settlement who, I have
reason to believe, had never set eyes on her or them. The twins were
quite naturally alike--having been in a previous state of existence two
ninepins--and were still somewhat vague and inchoate below their low
shoulders in their long clothes, but were also firm and globular about
the head, and there were not wanting those who professed to see in this
an unmistakable resemblance to their reputed father. The other children
were dolls of different ages, sex, and condition, but the twins may
be said to have been distinctly her own conception. Yet such was her
admirable and impartial maternity that she never made any difference
between them. "The Amplach's children" was a description rather than a
distinction.

She was herself the motherless child of Robert Foulkes, a hardworking
but somewhat improvident teamster on the Express Route between Big Bend
and Reno. His daily avocation, when she was not actually with him in the
wagon, led to an occasional dispersion of herself and her progeny along
the road and at wayside stations between those places. But the family
was generally collected together by rough but kindly hands already
familiar with the handling of her children. I have a very vivid
recollection of Jim Carter trampling into a saloon, after a five-mile
walk through a snowdrift, with an Amplach twin in his pocket. "Suthin'
ought to be done," he growled, "to make Meary a little more careful o'
them Amplach children; I picked up one outer the snow a mile beyond Big
Bend." "God bless my soul!" said a casual passenger, looking up hastily;
"I didn't know Mr. Amplach was married." Jim winked diabolically at us
over his glass. "No more did I," he responded gloomily, "but you can't
tell anyt