evelation, a sort of inspiration, given to the first man who saw her as
she rode down the mountain into camp, or the first man who spoke of her
as she rode blushing through their midst with her pretty face held
modestly down; but be all that as it may, certainly there was no design,
no delay, no hesitation about it from the first. And yet the appellation
was singularly appropriate, and perhaps suggested to this poor, lone
little woman, daring to cross the mountains, and to come down into this
great chasm of the earth, among utter strangers, the conduct of her
life.

The first woman came unheralded. Like all good things on earth, she came
quietly as a snowflake down in their midst, without ado or
demonstration.

Who she was or where she came from no one seemed to know. Perhaps the
propriety of questioning occurred to some of the men of the camp, but it
never found expression. I had rather say, however, that when they found
there was a real live woman in camp, a decent woman, who was willing to
work and take her place beside the men in the great battle--bear her
part in the common curse which demands that we shall toil to eat, they
quietly accepted the fact, as men do the fact of the baby's arrival,
without any question whatever.

This was not really the first woman to come into the camp of this
thousand of bearded men; and yet it was the first. There were now five
or six, maybe more, down at the Forks--some from Sydney, some from New
Orleans--waifs of the foam, painted children of passion.

I am not disposed to put all these women in the catalogue of saints.
They were very devils, some of them.

These women set man against man, and that Winter made many a crimson
place in the great snow banks in the streets. They started the first
graveyard at the Forks; and kept it recruited too, every holiday, and
almost every Sunday.

True, they did some good. I do not deny that. For example, I have in my
mind now the picture of one, Bunker Hill, holding the head of a brave
young fellow, shot through the temple, his long black hair in strings
and streaming with blood. She held him so till he died; and mourned and
would not be separated from him while a hope or a breath remained--the
blood on her hands, on her face, all over her costly silks and lace, and
on the floor.

Then she had him buried elegantly as possible; sent for a preacher away
over to Yreka to say the funeral service; put evergreens about his
grave, and refused t