e-coated, busy
bartenders.

At the farther end of the room a stringed orchestra was stationed upon a
platform, while to the bidding of the music women, and men with hats upon
their heads and cigars in mouths, and men together, whirled in couples, so
that the floor trembled to the boot heels. Scattered thickly over the
intervening space there were games of chance, every description,
surrounded by groups looking on or playing. Through the atmosphere blue
with the smoke women, many of them lavishly costumed as if for a ball,
strolled risking or responding to gallantries. The garb of the men
themselves ran the scale: from the comme il faut of slender shoes,
fashionably cut coats and pantaloons, and modish cravats, through the
campaign uniforms of army officers and enlisted men, to the frontier
corduroy and buckskin of surveyors and adventurers, the flannel shirts,
red, blue and gray, the jeans and cowhide boots of trainmen, teamsters,
graders, miners, and all.

From nearly every waist dangled a revolver. I remarked that not a few of
the women displayed little weapons as in bravado.

What with the music, the stamp of the dancers, the clink of glasses and
the ice in pitchers, the rattle of dice, the slap of cards and currency,
the announcements of the dealers, the clap-trap of barkers and monte
spielers, the general chatter of voices, one such as I, a newcomer,
scarcely knew which way to turn.

Altogether this was an amusement palace which, though rough of exterior,
eclipsed the best of the Bowery and might be found elsewhere, I imagined,
not short of San Francisco.

From the jostle of the doorway to pick out upon the floor any single
figure and follow it was well-nigh impossible. Not seeing my Lady in
Black, at first sight--not being certain of her, that is, for there were a
number of black dresses--I moved on in. It might be that she was among the
dancers, where, as I could determine by the vista, beauty appeared to be
whirling around in the embrace of the whiskered beast.

Then, as I advanced resolutely among the gaming tables, I felt a cuff upon
the shoulder and heard a bluff voice in my ear.

"Hello, old hoss. How are tricks by this time?"

Facing about quickly with apprehension of having been spotted by another
capper, if not Bill Brady himself (for the voice was not Colonel
Sunderson's unctuous tones) I saw Jim of the Sidney station platform and
the railway coach fracas.

He was grinning affably, apparently