You bet!" emphatically responded a majority of those present.

Before the boys became very restive, Thompson finished the pamphlet,
including a few lines on the cover, which stated that the society was
greatly in need of funds, and that contributions might be sent to the
society's financial agent in Boston. Thompson gracefully concluded his
service by passing the hat, with the following net result: Two
revolvers, one double-barreled pistol, three knives, one watch, two
rings (both home-made, valuable and fearfully ugly), a pocket-inkstand,
a silver tobacco-box, and forty or fifty ounces of dust and nuggets.
Boston Bill, who was notoriously absent-minded, dropped in a
pocket-comb, but, on being sternly called to order by old Thompson,
cursed himself most fluently, and redeemed his disgraceful contribution
with a gold double-eagle. "The Webfoot," who was the most unlucky man in
camp, had been so wrought upon by the tale of one missionary who had
lost his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his
only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally
treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the
highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the
shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were
then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with
a grim note from Pentecost, to the society's treasurer at Boston. As the
society was controlled by a denomination which does not understand how
good can come out of evil, no detail of this contribution ever appeared
in print. But a few months thereafter there _did_ appear at Hanney's a
thin-chested, large-headed youth, with a heavily loaded mule, who
announced himself as duly accredited by the aforementioned society to
preach the Gospel among the miners. The boys received him cordially,
and Pentecost offered him the nightly hospitality of curling up to sleep
in front of the bar-room fireplace. His mule's load proved to consist
largely of tracts, which he vigorously distributed, and which the boys
used to wrap up dust in. He nearly starved while trying to learn to cook
his own food, so some of the boys took him in and fed him. He tried to
persuade the boys to stop drinking, and they good-naturedly laughed; but
when he attempted to break up the "little game" which was the only
amusement of the camp--the only _steady_ amusement, for fights were
short and irregular