and miners
holding an equally foolish tradition on this head; while the humble
_paisano_ has gardened since Scipio and Hasdrubal; would garden in
hell. So the narrow bottom lands of the creek were given over to truck
patches and brown gardeners; tiny empires between loop and loop of
twisting water; black loam, pay dirt. It is curious to consider that
this pay dirt will be fruitful still, these homes will still be homes,
a thousand years after the last yellow dross has been sifted from the
hills.

So much for the town proper. A small outlying fringe lay below the
broad white wagon road twisting away between the hills in long curves
or terraced zigzags to the railhead. Here a flat black level of glassy
obsidian shouldered across the valley and forced the little river to
an unexpected whirling plunge where the dark box of the Percha led
wandering through the eastern barrier of hills; and on that black
cheerless level huddled the wide, low length of The Mermaid,
paintless, forbidding, shunning and shunned. Most odd to contemplate;
this glassy barren, nonproducing, uncultivated and unmined, waste and
sterile, was yet a better money-maker than the best placer or the
richest loam land of all Hillsboro. Tellurian papers please copy.

The Mermaid boasted no Jonson, and differed in other respects from The
Mermaid of Broad Street. Nor might it be reproached with any insidious
allure, though one of the seven deadly arts had been invoked. Facing
the bar, a startled sea maid turned her head, ever about to plunge to
the safety of green seas. The result was not convincing; she did not
look startled enough to dive. But perhaps the artist had a model.
Legend says the canvas was painted to liquidate a liquor bill, which
would explain much; it is hard paying for a dead horse. It had once
been signed, but some kindly hand had scraped the name away. In
moments of irritation Hillsboro spoke of The Mermaid as "The Dive."

"Johnny Dines--yah! Thought he could pull that stuff and get away with
it," said Jody Weir loudly. "Fine bluff, but it got called. Bankin'
on the cowmen to stick with him and get him out of it."

The Mermaid bar was crowded. It was a dingy place and a dingy crew.
The barkeeper had need for all his craft and swiftness to give
service. The barkeeper was also the owner--a tall man with a white
bloodless face, whiter for black brows like scars. The gambling hall
behind was lit up but deserted. The crowd was in too ugly a moo