et, as
these men of the Howling Wilderness fed on this one woman of the Forks.

Yet let it be remembered they always, and to a man, with scarce an
exception, spoke of her with the profoundest respect. Few of them had
had the pleasure of seeing her, fewer still of speaking to her, yet she
was the ever-present topic. Even the weather in a London Winter is
hardly more popular a theme, than was the Widow when they met in knots
in the little town after the day's work was over.

The brave, silent, modest little woman had put her hands to the plow at
once. These men knew perfectly well that honest people had no business
there but to work; and when her little hands, that did not look at all
as if they had been used to toil, took hold of the hard fact of life,
and the little face bent above the wash-tub, and the fine white brow
glistened with a diadem of diamonds that grew there as a price for
bread, they loved her to a man.

What strange savage scenes were enacted here before the arrival of this
one good woman. Every Saturday night was a sort of carnival of death.
Men went about from drinking-shop to drinking-shop, howling like Modocs,
swinging their pistols, proclaiming themselves chiefs, and seeking for
bloody combat. They gave the country a name and a reputation in this
first year of gold mining in the Sierras that will survive them every
one.

On Sunday the scene was somewhat changed. With all their savagery and
wildness and nonsense, it was always understood that the work of the
week must go on, and Sunday was the great day of preparation.

Sunday was not a day of rest. It is true the miners slept a little later
on Sunday morning, but Sunday was to all a day of terror and petty
troubles beyond measure. It always came to some one's turn, every Sunday
morning, in every mess or cabin, to begin his week's cooking for his
mess, and for that reason, if for no other, there was at least one man
miserable in every cabin whenever the dreaded Sunday came.

Then there was the mending of clothes! Mercy! Great big hairy men
sitting up and out on the hill-side with their backs up against the
pines, sitting there out of sight, half naked, stitching, stitching,
stitching, and swearing at every stitch.

But the great and terrible event of Sunday, before the Widow came, was
the washing of clothes. Neither love nor money could induce any one save
the uncertain little Chinaman to undertake this task for them, before
the arrival of the