entor's acquirements. When not entertaining a
circle of admiring auditors from San Francisco or the East he could
commonly be found pursuing the comparatively obscure industry of
sweeping out the various dance houses and purifying the cuspidors.

Barney had apparently but two passions in life--love of Jefferson Doman,
who had once been of some service to him, and love of whisky, which
certainly had not. He had been among the first in the rush to
Hurdy-Gurdy, but had not prospered, and had sunk by degrees to the
position of grave digger. This was not a vocation, but Barney in a
desultory way turned his trembling hand to it whenever some local
misunderstanding at the card table and his own partial recovery from a
prolonged debauch occurred coincidently in point of time. One day Mr.
Doman received, at Red Dog, a letter with the simple postmark, "Hurdy,
Cal.," and being occupied with another matter, carelessly thrust it into
a chink of his cabin for future perusal. Some two years later it was
accidentally dislodged and he read it. It ran as follows:--

HURDY, June 6.

FRIEND JEFF: I've hit her hard in the boneyard. She's blind and lousy.
I'm on the divvy--that's me, and mum's my lay till you toot.
Yours, BARNEY.

P.S.--I've clayed her with Scarry.

With some knowledge of the general mining camp _argot_ and of Mr. Bree's
private system for the communication of ideas Mr. Doman had no
difficulty in understanding by this uncommon epistle that Barney while
performing his duty as grave digger had uncovered a quartz ledge with no
outcroppings; that it was visibly rich in free gold; that, moved by
considerations of friendship, he was willing to accept Mr. Doman as a
partner and awaiting that gentleman's declaration of his will in the
matter would discreetly keep the discovery a secret. From the postscript
it was plainly inferable that in order to conceal the treasure he had
buried above it the mortal part of a person named Scarry.

From subsequent events, as related to Mr. Doman at Red Dog, it would
appear that before taking this precaution Mr. Bree must have had the
thrift to remove a modest competency of the gold; at any rate, it was at
about that time that he entered upon that memorable series of potations
and treatings which is still one of the cherished traditions of the San
Juan Smith country, and is spoken of with respect as far away as Ghost
Rock and Lone Hand. At its conclusion some former citizens of
Hurd