throw it on a table in the El Dorado, but I hung on to it."

"The El Dorado?" questioned the Easterner.

"Yes, one of the big gambling places here on the Plaza. Everybody took a
chance in those days, even some of the preachers. You met all your
friends there, and heard the best music and the latest news."

"Did they gamble with nuggets?" my companion led the old man on.

"Well, I guess they did! and gold dust in piles. The few children in
town used to pan out the dirt of the Plaza in front of the Temples of
Chance every morning after the places were swept out. The Californians
put up parts of their ranchos, too, sometimes."

"How high did the stakes run?" Evidently this descendant of the Pilgrims
had not lost all the sporting blood of his earlier English ancestors.

"Often as high as five hundred or a thousand dollars. The largest stake
I ever saw change hands was forty-five thousand. Many a miner went back
to the placers in the spring without a dollar in his pockets. But
everybody was doing it and you could almost count the nationalities in
the crowd around the table by the kinds of coins in the stacks. There
were French francs, English crowns, East Indian rupees, Spanish pesos
and United States dollars. The dress was as different as the money. We
miners wore red and blue shirts, slouch hats and wide belts to carry our
dust. The Californians were gorgeous in coats trimmed in gold lace,
short pantaloons and high deer-skin boots, and the Chinese ran a close
second in their colored brocaded silks. You knew the professional
gamblers by their long black coats and white linen--real gentlemen, many
of 'em and the most honest in the country.

"Ever see a picture of the Plaza in forty-nine," he asked abruptly.

"Never."

The miner drew a square on the gravel path with his stick. "The El
Dorado was here, the Veranda here and the Bella Union here," he said,
punching holes on the three corners of Kearny and Washington. "They were
the finest and they had the best locations in town. The El Dorado paid
forty thousand dollars a year for a tent and twenty-five thousand a
month for a building on the same site later." The end of his stick
deepened the hole on the southeast corner.

My eyes wandered from the plan to the real location. "Why, there is the
name 'Veranda' over there now," I exclaimed as the black letters on a
white awning caught my eye.

"Yes, it is pretty near the old site, but it's a poor substitute for its
pr