"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he
stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight
as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any
one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a
dozen of the boys would make him a first-rate case for the hospital
ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my
darter."

In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent
cigar.

Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge
of my impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in
its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the
gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and
dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each
with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a
pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in the bank he
had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.

These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with
it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value.
Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away with both hands,
and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little
wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every
day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless
stream of treasure.

I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street
with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of
burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs
were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans,
every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were
handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were
making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to
the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of
all.

I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had
bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.

"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face
was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In
this man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his
powers.

Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the