wn and overdone in every way, the place presented all the
features, sordid and otherwise, of a raw mining town. Prices had risen
enormously on all manner of supplies, for everything that was not
actually "short" was believed to be "cornered." Bacon was ninety cents a
pound; butter one dollar and a half a pound; flour was twenty dollars a
hundred pounds, and most things in like ratio. Some said the grub was
not in the camp; others that the tradesmen had it cached away waiting
for the still higher prices they believed would obtain before fresh
supplies could arrive in July. There was a general feeling of
disappointment and discouragement, enhanced by discomfort and actual
suffering from the terrible stormy weather of the winter and the
exorbitant and growing price of provisions. Many men without occupation
were living on one meal a day. The saloons and the parasitical classes,
male and female, seemed to flourish and to play their usual prominent
part in the life of such places. The doings of notorious women whose
sobriquets seemed household words, the lavish expenditures of certain
men upon them, the presents of diamonds they received, with the amount
paid for them, constituted a large part of the general talk.

One is compelled to admire the vigour and enthusiastic enterprise,
daunted by no difficulty, that is displayed in the wonderfully rapid
upraising of a new mining-camp town. The building goes far ahead of the
known wealth of the camp and commonly far ahead of the reasonable
expectation. But the element of chance is so important a factor in
placer mining that the whole thing partakes more of the nature of
gambling than of a commercial venture. Any new camp may suddenly present
the world with a new Klondike; with riches abundant and to spare for
every one who is fortunate enough to be on the spot. Here was Flat Creek
with a surprisingly rich deposit; why should there not be a dozen such
amidst the multitudinous creeks of the district? How could any one know
that it would be almost the only creek on which pay would be found at
all? For there is no law about the distribution of gold deposits; there
is not even a general rule that has not its notable exceptions. It is
very generally believed by the old prospectors and miners that somewhere
in the Bible may be found these words, "Silver occurs in veins, but gold
is where you find it," which of course, is a mere misreading or faulty
remembering of a verse in the Book of Jo