usical box. For comfort,
most of the pistols were on the table with the Statutes of the United
States. Secretary and Treasurer Hewley's lay on his strong-box
immediately behind him. The Governor's was a light one, and always hung
in the arm hole of his waistcoat. The graveyard of Boise City this year
had twenty-seven tenants, two brought there by meningitis, and
twenty-five by difference of opinion. Many denizens of the Territory
were miners, and the unsettling element of gold-dust hung in the air,
breeding argument. The early, thin, bright morning steadily mellowed
against the windows distant from the stove; the panes melted clear until
they ran, steamed faintly, and dried, this fresh May day, after the
night's untimely cold; while still the Legislature sat in its
shirt-sleeves, and several statesmen had removed their boots. Even had
appearances counted, the session was invisible from the street. Unlike a
good number of houses in the town, the State-House (as they called it
from old habit) was not all on the ground-floor for outsiders to stare
into, but up a flight of wood steps to a wood gallery. From this, to be
sure, the interior could be watched from several windows on both sides;
but the journey up the steps was precisely enough to disincline the
idle, and this was counted a sensible thing by the law-makers. They took
the ground that shaping any government for a raw wilderness community
needed seclusion, and they set a high value upon unworried privacy.

The sun had set upon a concentrated Council, but it rose upon faces that
looked momentous. Only the Governor's and Treasurer's were impassive,
and they concealed something even graver than the matter in hand.

"I'll take a hun'red mo', Gove'nuh," said the member from Silver City,
softly, his eyes on space. His name was Powhattan Wingo.

The Governor counted out the blue, white, and red chips to Wingo,
pencilled some figures on a thickly ciphered and cancelled paper that
bore in print the words "Territory of Idaho, Council Chamber," and then
filled up his glass from the tin pitcher, adding a little sugar.

"And I'll trouble you fo' the toddy," Wingo added, always softly, and
his eyes always on space. "Raise you ten, suh." This was to the
Treasurer. Only the two were playing at present. The Governor was kindly
acting as bank; the others were looking on.

"And ten," said the Treasurer.

"And ten," said Wingo.

"And twenty," said the Treasurer.

"And fifty,"