Alexander
McGee, better known as "the Bell-ringer of Angel's." This euphonious
title, which might have suggested a consistently peaceful occupation,
however, referred to his accuracy of aim at a mechanical target, where
the piercing of the bull's eye was celebrated by the stroke of a bell.
It is probable that this singular proficiency kept his investment of
that gentle seclusion unchallenged. At all events it was uninvaded. He
shared it only with the birds. Perhaps some suggestion of nest building
may have been in his mind, for one pleasant spring morning he brought
hither a wife. It was his OWN; and in this way he may be said to have
introduced that morality which is supposed to be the accompaniment and
reflection of pastoral life. Mrs. McGee's red petticoat was sometimes
seen through the trees--a cheerful bit of color. Mrs. McGee's red
cheeks, plump little figure, beribboned hat and brown, still-girlish
braids were often seen at sunset on the river bank, in company with
her husband, who seemed to be pleased with the discreet and distant
admiration that followed them. Strolling under the bland shadows of the
cotton-woods, by the fading gold of the river, he doubtless felt that
peace which the mere world cannot give, and which fades not away before
the clear, accurate eye of the perfect marksman.

Their nearest neighbors were the two brothers Wayne, who took up
a claim, and built themselves a cabin on the river bank near the
promontory. Quiet, simple men, suspected somewhat of psalm-singing, and
undue retirement on Sundays, they attracted but little attention. But
when, through some original conception or painstaking deliberation, they
turned the current of the river so as to restrict the overflow between
the promontory and the river bank, disclosing an auriferous "bar" of
inconceivable richness, and establishing their theory that it was really
the former channel of the river, choked and diverted though ages of
alluvial drift, they may be said to have changed, also, the fortunes
of the little settlement. Popular feeling and the new prosperity which
dawned upon the miners recognized the two brothers by giving the name of
Wayne's Bar to the infant settlement and its post-office. The peaceful
promontory, although made easier of access, still preserved its calm
seclusion, and pretty Mrs. McGee could contemplate through the leaves of
her bower the work going on at its base, herself unseen. Nevertheless,
this Arcadian retreat