TH.

Early one frosty morning in the Fall following, Old Baboon sat by the
door of the only saloon. He held an old bull-dog by a tow-string, and
both man and dog were pictures of distress as they shivered from the
keen cold wind that came pitching down from the snow-peaks. As a man
approached, the man shivered till his teeth chattered, and clutching at
the string, looked helplessly over his shoulder at the uncompromising
bar-keeper, who had just arisen and opened the door to let out the bad
odors of his den.

The dog shivered too, and came up and sat down close enough to receive
the sympathetic hand of Old Baboon on his broad bowed head. This man was
a relic and a wreck. More than twenty years of miner's life and labor in
the mountains, interrupted of late only by periodical sprees governed in
their duration solely by the results of his last "clean up," had made
him one of a type of men known only to the Pacific.

True, he had failed to negotiate with the savage cinnamon-headed vendor
of poison; but he was no beggar. It was simply a failure to obtain a
Wall Street accommodation in a small way. I doubt if the bristled-haired
bar-keeper himself questioned the honesty of Baboon. It was merely a
question of ability to pay, and the decision of the autocrat had been
promptly and firmly given against the applicant.

Perhaps, in strict justice to the red-haired wretch that washed his
tumblers and watched for victims that frosty morning, I should state
that appearances were certainly against Baboon.

You can with tolerable certainty, in the placer mines, tell how a
miner's claim is paying by the condition and quality of his top-boots.
Baboon had no boots, only a pair of slippers improvised from old
rubbers, and between the top of these and the legs of his pantaloons
there was no compromise across the naked, cold-blue ankles.

These signs, together with a buttonless blue shirt that showed his hairy
bosom, a frightful beard and hair beneath a hat that drooped like a
wilted palm-leaf, were the circumstantial evidences from which Judge
Barkeep made his decision.

It would perhaps be more pleasant for us all if we could know that such
men were a race to themselves; that they never saw civilization; that
there never was a time when they were petted by pretty sisters, and sat,
pure and strong, the central figures of Christian households; or at
least we would like to think that they grew upon the border, and
belonged there. Bu