ought-for "Placer" was celebrated by an extra
allowance of rum, and the party conversed till a late hour of the
night, with a degree of animation they had not exhibited for a long time
previous. Stories of the "washings" resumed their sway,--strange, wild
narratives, the chief interest in which, however striking at the time,
lay in the manner of those who related them, and were themselves the
actors. They nearly all turned upon some incident of gambling, and were
strong illustrations of how completely the love of gain can co-exist
with a temperament utterly wasteful and reckless, while both can render
a man totally indifferent to every feeling of friendship. There was
mention, by chance, of a certain Narvasque, who had been the comrade of
many of the party.

"He is dead," cried one.

"Caramba!" cried another, "that is scarcely true; they told me he was at
the Austin fair this fall."

"You may rely on it he's dead," said the first, "for I know it; he died
on the Sacramento, and in this wise. We had had a two months' run of
luck at the Crestones of Bacuachez,--such fortune as I only hope we
may soon see again; none of your filthy wash and sieve work, nor any
splintering of a steel barreta on a flint-rock, but light digging along
the stream, and turning up such masses of the real shining
metal as would make your heart leap to look at,--lumps of
thirty,--thirty-five,--ay, forty pounds."

"There, there, Harispe!" said an old fellow, with a long pipe of
sugar-cane, "if we are to swallow what's a-comin', don't choke us just
now."

"What does an old trapper know of the diggin's?" said Harispe,
contemptuously. "'T is a bee-huntin' and a birds'-nestin' you ought
to be. Smash my ribs! if he ever saw goold, except on the breast of a
gooldfinch." Having silenced his adversary, he resumed:--

"We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is
metal? One can't eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on't; and the
fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost
twenty--no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a
goold button off my coat every morning for a day's grub, so that we
had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try
to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n't much savin' in that
plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an
ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and
played brag, and it was