420 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



descended simultaneously on the subject under trial. Away 

 he went up the street, the preponderance of balance all on 

 the off side. At the corner the instinct of the beast pointed 

 irresistibly to the near. There was no stirrup to hold the 

 bold rider, who, next moment, was face downward in a 

 sea of snow and slush. The deal was off, and so was the 

 quad, owner after him. Whether ever again they came 

 together I did not wait to see. But I fear that, but for the 

 whisky, the Clonmel February Fair would have been an 

 occasion devoid of life. 



CHAPTER LXVII 



AN INCIDENT OF ROUGH WEATHER ON THE ROCKIES 



It is difficult, nay, impossible, for the stay-at-home Eng- 

 lish mind to realise the extraordinary types of humanity 

 occasionally to be met with on the Rocky Mountains. 

 Restlessness and an undaunted desire to become rich 

 are prevailing characteristics of the whole American 

 nation. But nowhere are these so sturdily developed as 

 in the Far West, where every man is fully assured that in 

 his knapsack {i.e. in his hands and brain) he carries the 

 baton, not of a Field-Marshal, nor yet of a President of 

 the United States, but, greater by far in his eyes, of a Jay 

 Gould or a Vanderbilt. He only needs the opportunity ; 

 and this he is never tired of seeking, never down-hearted, 

 however repeatedly he has failed to find it. 



The cessation of purchase of silver by the Govern- 

 ment, and the consequent depreciation of that metal, the 

 chief product of the West, have led to the closing up of a 

 great number of mining works, and to the letting loose 

 upon the face of western earth of a large addition to the 

 body of free-lances already roaming the country, baton in 

 knapsack. Two and a half to five dollars (los. to ;^i) 

 a day were very fair wages for a mining day of eight 

 hours ; and from it a man, boarding himself, or " baching 

 it," could very well expect to carry over a monthly balance 



1^ 



