JIMVILLE 



fierce, shy, profane, sun-dried derelicts of 

 the windy hills, who each owned, or had 

 owned, a mine and was wishful to own one 

 again. They laid up on the worn benches 

 of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck 

 like beached vessels, and their talk ran on 

 endlessly of " strike " and " contact " and 

 " mother lode," and worked around to 

 fights and hold-ups, villainy, haunts, and 

 the hoodoo of the Minietta, told austerely 

 without imagination. 



Do not suppose I am going to repeat it 

 all ; you who want these things written up 

 from the point of view of people who do 

 not do them every day would get no savor 

 in their speech. 



Says Three Finger, relating the history 

 of the Mariposa, " I took it off' n Tom 

 Beatty, cheap, after his brother Bill was 

 shot." 



ii8 



