r a week, and see how Yank
gets along, and then we can go back to Porcupine."

As though this decision lifted a great weight, we sat back on our
shoulder blades with a sigh of relief, and blew tobacco smoke straight
up in the air for at least fifteen minutes. By the end of that time we,
being young and restless, felt thoroughly refreshed.

"Let's go look this outfit over," suggested Johnny.

We gravitated naturally to the diggings, which were very much like those
at Hangman's Gulch, except that they were rather more extensive, and
branched out more into the tributary ravines. The men working there
were, many of them, of a much better type than those we had seen in
town; though even here was a large element of rough-looking, wild,
reckless customers. We wandered about here and there, our hands in our
pockets, a vast leisure filling our souls. With some of the more
pleasant-appearing miners we conversed. They told us that the diggings
were rich, good "ounce a day" diggings. We saw a good many cradles in
use. It was easy to tell the old-timers from the riffraff of newcomers.
A great many of the latter seemed to lack the steadiness of purpose
characteristic of nearly all the first rush. They worked haphazardly,
spasmodically, pulling and hauling against each other. Some should not
have been working at all, for their eyes were sunken in their heads from
illness.

"We've got to hustle now," they told us. "We can take a good rest when
the rains stop work."

We noticed especially a marked change in demeanour among some of the
groups. In the early part of the summer every man answered every man
good-naturedly, except he happened to have a next day's head or some
other sort of a personal grouch. Now many compact little groups of men
worked quite apart. When addressed they merely scowled or looked sullen,
evidently quite unwilling to fraternize with the chance-comer.

We loafed about here and there through the diggings, swapping remarks
with the better disposed, until the men began to knock off work. Then we
returned through the village.

Its street had begun to fill. Here, too, we could not but be struck by
the subtle change that had come over the spirit of the people. All used
to seem like the members of a big family, good-natured and approachable
even when strangers. Now a slower acquaintance must precede familiarity.
We seemed out of it because we did not know anybody, something we had
not felt before in a mining camp.