ace of ruin wrought by time. Wherever there remained a
patch of the original soil a rank overgrowth of weeds and brambles had
spread upon the scene, and from its dank, unwholesome shades the visitor
curious in such matters might have obtained numberless souvenirs of the
camp's former glory--fellowless boots mantled with green mould and
plethoric of rotting leaves; an occasional old felt hat; desultory
remnants of a flannel shirt; sardine boxes inhumanly mutilated and a
surprising profusion of black bottles distributed with a truly catholic
impartiality, everywhere.

II

The man who had now rediscovered Hurdy-Gurdy was evidently not curious
as to its archaeology. Nor, as he looked about him upon the dismal
evidences of wasted work and broken hopes, their dispiriting
significance accentuated by the ironical pomp of a cheap gilding by the
rising sun, did he supplement his sigh of weariness by one of
sensibility. He simply removed from the back of his tired burro a
miner's outfit a trifle larger than the animal itself, picketed that
creature and selecting a hatchet from his kit moved off at once across
the dry bed of Injun Creek to the top of a low, gravelly hill beyond.

Stepping across a prostrate fence of brush and boards he picked up one
of the latter, split it into five parts and sharpened them at one end.
He then began a kind of search, occasionally stooping to examine
something with close attention. At last his patient scrutiny appeared to
be rewarded with success, for he suddenly erected his figure to its full
height, made a gesture of satisfaction, pronounced the word "Scarry" and
at once strode away with long, equal steps, which he counted. Then he
stopped and drove one of his stakes into the earth. He then looked
carefully about him, measured off a number of paces over a singularly
uneven ground and hammered in another. Pacing off twice the distance at
a right angle to his former course he drove down a third, and repeating
the process sank home the fourth, and then a fifth. This he split at the
top and in the cleft inserted an old letter envelope covered with an
intricate system of pencil tracks. In short, he staked off a hill claim
in strict accordance with the local mining laws of Hurdy-Gurdy and put
up the customary notice.

It is necessary to explain that one of the adjuncts to Hurdy-Gurdy--one
to which that metropolis became afterward itself an adjunct--was a
cemetery. In the first week of the camp's exi