iff of Calaveras--a quiet, gentle, thoughtful
man--arrived in town, and passed from one to the other of excited
groups, dropping here and there detached but concise and practical
information.

"Yes, gentlemen, you are right, Mrs. Downey is not dead, because there
wasn't any Mrs. Downey! Her part was played by George F. Fenwick, of
Sydney,--a 'ticket-of-leave-man,' who was, they say, a good actor.
Downey? Oh, yes Downey was Jem Flanigan, who, in '52, used to run the
variety troupe in Australia, where Miss Somerset made her debut. Stand
back a little, boys. Steady! 'The money?' Oh, yes, they've got away
with that, sure! How are ye, Joe? Why, you're looking well and
hearty! I rather expected ye court week. How's things your way?"

"Then they were only play-actors, Joe Hall?" broke in a dozen voices.

"I reckon!" returned the sheriff, coolly.

"And for a matter o' five blank years," said Whisky Dick, sadly, "they
played this camp!"

"JINNY"

I think that the few who were permitted to know and love the object of
this sketch spent the rest of their days not only in an attitude of
apology for having at first failed to recognize her higher nature, but
of remorse that they should have ever lent a credulous ear to a priori
tradition concerning her family characteristics. She had not escaped
that calumny which she shared with the rest of her sex for those
youthful follies, levities, and indiscretions which belong to
immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness that distinguished
her maturer will in youth might have been taken for obstinacy, that her
nice discrimination might at the same period have been taken for
adolescent caprice, and that the positive expression of her quick
intellect might have been thought youthful impertinence before her
years had won respect for her judgment.

She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month later, when she was
brought over to Sawyer's Bar, was considered the smallest donkey ever
seen in the foot-hills. The legend that she was brought over in one of
"Dan the Quartz Crusher's" boots required corroboration from that
gentleman; but his denial being evidently based upon a masculine vanity
regarding the size of his foot rather than a desire to be historically
accurate, it went for nothing. It is certain that for the next two
months she occupied the cabin of Dan, until, perhaps incensed at this
and other scandals, she one night made her way out. "I hadn't the
least idee