220 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



rible calamity was disclosed to me. I was spend- 

 ing some time in a mining camp in the Needles in 

 which I was interested. One evening I listened 

 to the story, told by himself, of the shameful and 

 shameless life of one of the miners. He neither 

 had nor claimed a conscience, didn't know the dif- 

 ference between morality and immorality, al- 

 though showing an instinctive preference for the 

 latter. He filled out chapters of his own iniqui- 

 ties with less emphasis than a schoolboy would 

 give to a perfunctory recitation. In the Civil 

 War he had been a bounty jumper, and must be 

 drawing a dozen pensions now. 



His colorless voice took on a trace of emotion 

 as he lamented the hard fate that caught him once 

 as he was getting away and shipped him to Fort 

 Fisher, where he had to stand fire for once. I 

 tried to prove by him that "The way of the trans- 

 gressor is hard," but he declined to confirm the 

 argument. He brightened up as he casually in- 

 formed me that his softest job had been smug- 

 gling aguardiente and cigars on my ships. I 



