e forsaken his haunts in disgust,
and the road could be traversed by small parties with impunity.

Comparative order used to reign during the daytime at Jackman's Gulch,
for the majority of the inhabitants were out with crowbar and pick among
the quartz ledges, or washing clay and sand in their cradles by the
banks of the little stream. As the sun sank down, however, the claims
were gradually deserted, and their unkempt owners, clay-bespattered and
shaggy, came lounging into camp, ripe for any form of mischief. Their
first visit was to Woburn's gold store, where their clean-up of the day
was duly deposited, the amount being entered in the storekeeper's book,
and each miner retaining enough to cover his evening's expenses. After
that, all restraint was at an end, and each set to work to get rid
of his surplus dust with the greatest rapidity possible. The focus of
dissipation was the rough bar, formed by a couple of hogsheads spanned
by planks, which was dignified by the name of the "Britannia Drinking
Saloon." Here Nat Adams, the burly bar-keeper, dispensed bad whisky
at the rate of two shillings a noggin, or a guinea a bottle, while his
brother Ben acted as croupier in a rude wooden shanty behind, which had
been converted into a gambling hell, and was crowded every night. There
had been a third brother, but an unfortunate misunderstanding with a
customer had shortened his existence. "He was too soft to live long,"
his brother Nathaniel feelingly observed, on the occasion of his
funeral. "Many's the time I've said to him, 'If you're arguin' a pint
with a stranger, you should always draw first, then argue, and then
shoot, if you judge that he's on the shoot.' Bill was too purlite.
He must needs argue first and draw after, when he might just as well
have kivered his man before talkin' it over with him." This amiable
weakness of the deceased Bill was a blow to the firm of Adams, which
became so short-handed that the concern could hardly be worked without
the admission of a partner, which would mean a considerable decrease in
the profits.

Nat Adams had had a roadside shanty in the Gulch before the discovery
of gold, and might, therefore, claim to be the oldest inhabitant.
These keepers of shanties were a peculiar race, and at the cost of a
digression it may be interesting to explain how they managed to amass
considerable sums of money in a land where travellers were few and far
between. It was the custom of the "bushmen,"