ch must have exasperated those of their neighbors inclined
to gossip. For these ladies had nothing to say concerning whence they
had come or the business of their husbands. Two of those husbands were
now spending much of their time in other camps and came home but
seldom to pay brief visits to their wives. The third stayed here in
Mokelumne Hill.

The days went by; the pack-trains jingled down out of the hills; the
processions of heavy wagons lumbered up from the San Joaquin valley
enwrapped in clouds of red dust; an endless stream of men flowed into
the town on its bench-land above the canyon where the river brawled.
Men from all the world, they came and went, and the milling crowds
absorbed those who lingered, nor heeded who they were. Gold was
plentiful, and while the yellow dust was passing from hand to hand
life moved so swiftly that no one had time to think of his neighbor's
business. The good-looking young Mexican was as a drop of water in a
rapid stream.

When dusk crept up out of the canyon and the candles filled the
gambling-houses with floods of mellow radiance he mingled with the
crowds. He drank with those who asked him and talked with those who
cared to pass a word with him; talked about the output of the near-by
gulches, the necessity of armed guards for the wagons and pack-trains,
or the chances of capturing Joaquin Murieta. In spite of his good
looks and expensive clothes he was about as unobtrusive as a Mexican
could be, which is saying a good deal at the period.

One April evening he was sitting at a monte-game. The gambling-hall
was filled with raw-boned packers from the hills, dust-stained
teamsters from the valley towns, miners from the diggings, and a
riffraff of adventurers from no one knew--or cared--where. It was a
booted crowd with a goodly sprinkling of red shirts to give it color,
and weapons in evidence on every side. Here walked one with a brace of
long-barreled muzzle-loading pistols in his belt, and there another
with the handle of a bowie-knife protruding from his boot-top; and
every one of those frock-coated dealers at the tables had a Derringer
or two stowed away on that portion of his person which he deemed most
accessible. The bartender kept a double-barreled shotgun under the
counter across which the drinks were being served.

In the midst of this animated arsenal the dark-eyed young Mexican
dandy sat placing his bets while the dealer turned the cards and luck
came, after luck