.
The majority were shaggy, bronzed adventurers, the variety being
almost as great as the numbers. Some had been clerks, several were
college graduates, a number were the sons of wealthy parents, and one
was a full-fledged parson, while there was a certain percentage who
had left their homes to escape the grip of the offended law.

With that yearning for picturesqueness which is a peculiar trait of
Americans, the miners felt that when their settlement had attained the
dignity of nearly a dozen dwellings, it was entitled to an appropriate
name. The gorge, which seemed to have been gouged out of the solid
mass of boulders and rocks, when the mountains were split apart in the
remote past, was known from the first by the title already given,
which also clung to the diggings themselves.

The single saloon presided over by Max Ortigies, was the Heavenly
Bower,--so _that_ point was settled, but when it came to naming the
settlement itself, the difficulties were so numerous that days and
weeks passed without an agreement being reached. No matter how
striking and expressive the title offered by one man, the majority
promptly protested. It was too sulphurous, or too insipid or it lacked
in that nebulous characteristic which may be defined as true
Americanism. It looked as if the problem would never be solved, when
Landlord Ortigies, taking the bull by the horns, appointed a committee
of three to select a name, the others pledging themselves to accept
whatever the committee submitted.

But the mischief was to pay when on the night of the blizzard the
committee met at the Heavenly Bower to make their report. The chairman
insisted upon "E Pluribus Unum," the second member's favorite was
"Murderer's Holler," while the third would not listen to anything
except "Wolf Eye," and each was immovably set in his convictions.

Budge Isham was not a member of the committee, but he was known as a
college graduate. From his seat on an overturned box at the rear of
the room, where he was smoking a pipe, he asked troublesome questions
and succeeded in arraying the committeemen so fiercely against one
another that each was eager to vote, in the event of failing to carry
his own point, in favor of any name objectionable to the rest.

The chairman as stated favored the patriotic name "E Pluribus Unum,"
and boldly announced the fact.

"It has a lofty sound," blandly remarked Isham; "will the chairman be
good enough to translate it for us? In ot