was regarded with a certain degree of reverence among a
community whose peculiar habits often gave rise to pressing and
immediate need of surgical attendance. Consequently, Gentleman Dick
rapidly attained an elevated position in their regard, and became a
great favorite with Old Platte's party, although they still looked
doubtfully at his slender figure and felt "kind o' bothered" by the air
of gentility and good-breeding which hung around him in spite of the
rough miner's garments that he had chosen to assume. By the time they
left Denver for the Blue he was deemed as indispensable to the company
as Old Platte himself.

* * * * *

The forest of dark pines and firs that covered both sides of the valley
of the Blue grew down to the bars of the river, which along its banks
was thickly grown with wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes, and piled
up here and there with great tangled heaps of driftwood which the spring
floods brought down and left in masses of inextricable confusion along
its sides. Back a little distance from one of these sandy flats, and
nestled right in the shadow of the forest's edge, they built a long
rough cabin early in June. In summer-time the spot was a wild and
picturesque one. Green and luxuriant vegetation made a soft and
brilliant carpet at the feet of the stately old pines; huge boulder-like
rocks, their edges softened and rounded in the grasp of one of Agassiz'
pre-Adamite glaciers that had ground its icy way down from the melting
snow-caps above--rocks covered with bright lichens and tufts of moss---
lay piled on one another at the foot of the steep mountain-side; while
gnarled cedars twisted around about them, their rough red roots twining
here and there in search of sustenance. Below the cabin a little way lay
the bar--Chihuahua Bar they had christened it, out of deference to
"Jones of Chihuahua," whose prospecting-pan had developed the fact that
gold in promising quantities lay beneath it--and a little farther on the
Blue sang merrily in its gravelly bed. Down the river, about two miles,
was Blue Bar, where about two hundred miners had formed a settlement,
and where a red-headed Scotchman, who combined the duties of a
self-constituted postmaster with the dispensation of a villainous
article of whisky, kept a lively grocery and provision store.

During the early part of the season they had prospected up along the
river, finding gold all the way, but not in qu