ed to
remain indifferently silent, self-contained and aloof. To occasional
salutations they responded briefly and with gravity.

"Professional gamblers," said Talbot.

All the rest of the crowd rushed here and there at a great speed. We saw
the wildest incongruities of demeanour and costume beside which the
silk-hat-red-shirted combination was nothing. They struck us
open-mouthed and gasping; but seemed to attract not the slightest
attention from anybody else. We encountered a number of men dressed
alike in suits of the finest broadcloth, the coats of which were lined
with red silk, and the vests of embroidered white. These men walked with
a sort of arrogant importance. We later found that they were members of
that dreaded organization known as _The Hounds_, whose ostensible
purpose was to perform volunteer police duty, but whose real effort was
toward the increase of their own power. These people all surged back and
forth good-naturedly, and shouted at each other, and disappeared with
great importance up the side streets, or darted out with equal busyness
from all points of the compass. Every few minutes a cry of warning would
go up on one side of the square or another. The crowd would scatter to
right and left, and down through the opening would thunder a horseman
distributing clouds of dust and showers of earth.

"Why doesn't somebody kill a few of those crazy fools!" muttered Talbot
impatiently, after a particularly close shave.

"Why, you see, they's mostly drunk," stated a bystander with an air of
explaining all.

We tacked across to the doors of the Parker House. There after some
search was made we found the proprietor. He, too, seemed very busy, but
he spared time to trudge ahead of us up two rickety flights of raw
wooden stairs to a loft where he indicated four canvas bunks on which
lay as many coarse blue blankets.

Perhaps a hundred similar bunks occupied every available inch in the
little loft.

"How long you going to stay?" he asked us.

"Don't know; a few days."

"Well, six dollars apiece, please."

"For how long?"

"For to-night."

"Hold on!" expostulated Talbot. "We can't stand that especially for
these accommodations. At that price we ought to have something better.
Haven't you anything in the second story?"

The proprietor's busy air fell from him; and he sat down on the edge of
one of the canvas bunks.

"I thought you boys were from the mines," said he. "Your friend, here,
fooled m