hey were going. Nobody
tried to play any practical jokes on them.

Of the regular population I suppose three fourths were engaged in gold
washing. The miners did not differ from those of their class anywhere
else; that is to say, they were of all nationalities, all classes of
life, and all degrees of moral responsibility. They worked doggedly and
fast in order to get as much done as possible before the seasonal rains.
When night fell the most of them returned to their cabins and slept the
sleep of the weary; with a weekly foray into town of a more or less
lurid character. They had no time for much else, in their notion; and on
that account were, probably unconsciously, the most selfish community I
ever saw. There was a great deal of sickness, and many deaths, but
unless a man had a partner or a friend to give him some care, he might
die in his cabin for all the attention any one else would pay him. In
the same spirit only direct personal interest would arouse in any of
them the least indignation over the only too frequent killings and
robberies.

"They found a man shot by the Upper Bend this morning," remarks one to
his neighbour.

"That so? Who was he?" asks the other.

"Don't know. Didn't hear," is the reply.

The barroom or street killings, which averaged in number at least two or
three a week, while furnishing more excitement, aroused very little more
real interest. Open and above-board homicides of that sort were always
the result of differences of opinion. If the victim had a friend, the
latter might go gunning for his pal's slayer; but nobody had enough
personal friends to elevate any such row to the proportions of a general
feud.

All inquests were set aside until Sunday. A rough and ready public
meeting invariably brought in the same verdict--"justifiable
self-defence." At these times, too, popular justice was dispensed, but
carelessly and not at all in the spirit of the court presided over by
John Semple at Hangman's Gulch. A general air of levity characterized
these occasions, which might strike as swift and deadly a blow as a
shaft of lightning, or might puff away as harmlessly as a summer zephyr.
Many a time, until I learned philosophically to stay away, did my blood
boil over the haphazard way these men had of disposing of some poor
creature's destinies.

"Here's a Mex thief," observed the chair. "What do you want done with
him?"

"Move we cut off his ears!" yelled a voice from the back of the c