MY LAST BEAR. 85 



comforting reflection he expectorated fiercely and pro- 

 miscuously for several seconds, took a long drink and 

 went to sleep again, and I believe slept all the way to 

 Portland. 



Portland at that time was a perfect hell upon earth. 

 Every gambler, rowdy, " shootist,^^ and scallywag from 

 all the Americas seemed congregated in this unfortunate 

 place. It was positively quite dangerous to look at a 

 man in a supercilious manner. Being an Englishman, 

 I was advised to keep very quiet, as the war was going 

 on j in fact, I bought a pair of gum boots and a felt 

 hat with a rim something less than two feet wide, and 

 was a " down-easter from Bosting ^' all the time I was in 

 Portland. I was told I looked it all over. 



Shooting scrapes were an almost everyday occurrence, 

 a gay and festive cuss named Fred Pattison was the boy 

 of the period when I was there. This playful youth, 

 who was only about twenty-one years of age, had already 

 laid out his fourteen men, and was in Portland owing 

 to a trifling difficulty he had had in Ruby City, where 

 he had just shot two miners in a gambling hell. The 

 sheriff came down after Master Fred, and the latter 

 immediately went for him, and shot him in the back 

 out of a window. He remained master of the situation, 

 no one tried to take him, as they all guessed he was 

 " particler spry on sheriffs. ^^ On my return I was ex- 

 tremely glad to find that this amiable youth had been 

 laid out himself, having been shot from the street by a 

 man whom he had threatened as he was being shaved 

 in a barber^s shop. However, Portland is a fine city 

 now, and as quiet as any place in the universe. I did 

 not stop long in the town, as there was nothing to see 

 much, and only a very little sport within a reasonable 



