the hills as chill as if from a snow bank, and it 
was a relief to emerge into the more open space, 
at the lower end of Silver City, the first of the 
three mining towns. Our ears had been saluted 
for some time with the continuous clangor of 
the heavy iron stamps crushing the ore in the 
mills, a noise which was never allowed to cease 
day or night, and now in the single street of 
the place was noise and confusion which seemed 
strangely out of place after the quiet of the 
miles which lay behind us. The rattle and 
grinding of heavy wagons coming down from 
the mines loaded or returning empty; the creak¬ 
ing of brakes, the cracking of whips, and the 
oaths of scores of teamsters, urging forward 
their straining mules, made the place seem like 
bedlam. Half or more of the business places 
along the street were gambling houses and 
drinking resorts, while wooden residences and 
boarding houses clambered up the hillside on 
each side. A half mile or so of mills and sluices 
at the upper end of Silver City canyon ushered us 
into the deeper and narrower gorge in which lay 
Gold Hill camp. More saloons, stores and work¬ 
shops crowded closely together, more teams and 
more cussing for a half mile or so, and we 
emerged upon the “divide,” which separated 
Gold Hill from Virginia City located on the side 
of Mount Davidson directly over the Comstock 
Lode, at one time the richest silver deposit in the 
world. A wider and smoother road here gave 
our driver a chance to put on a finishing spurt, 
and we bowled along “C.” street in fine style to 
the Union Hotel, the ne plus ultra of mining 
camp hostelries, in front of which we arrived at 
about three o’clock in the afternoon. Virginia 
City was at this time the only place of any im¬ 
portance in point of size in the state, having 
within its limits or in its immediate vicinity fully 
one-third of the entire population. 
There was no coach leaving for California un¬ 
til the next morning, and I was glad of an excuse 
for securing a room and again sleeping in a bed. 
Having spent several months in this place a year 
or two previously, I had several friends and en¬ 
joyed my forced detention. 
Many people have very exaggerated ideas of 
the social conditions in these out of the way 
places before the advent of railways. The gen¬ 
eral average was far better than in a new west¬ 
ern railway town, where the facilities for travel 
enabled the worthless, half criminal, and the 
wholly criminal classes to come and go readily. 
It is needless to say that everything in Nevada 
was “wide open,” to use the present day idiom. 
There was no concealment. Everyone knew 
what sort of a man his neighbor was, not what 
he had been but what he was then. Gambling 
like everything else was open and above board. 
If anyone in a position of trust gambled, those 
interested were pretty sure to know of it, as 
there were certain to be spectators, often attract¬ 
ed by the circumstance that a handsome woman 
sat by the dealer’s side. Very few of my friends 
or those whom I knew well, gambled. I did 
not and, no one needed to, unless they chose. I 
knew many of the professional gamblers and 
often looked on at the games, but was never 
solicited to play, though at one time I took my 
meals regularly in a gambling bouse because they 
were better there than elsewhere. 
It was the same with drinking. The custom 
was universal, but considering the lack of other 
FOREST AND STREAM 
amusements than those of the saloon, gambling 
room, dance hall, etc., there was not much 
drunkenness. 
To imagine that life or property was unsafe 
is a mistake. I have mingled in every kind of 
company found in early times in a mining camp 
without danger or even a thought of possible 
danger. 
Only once did I actually see a man killed in a 
pistol fight, and in this case the man who fell 
had threatened to kill his adversary on sight. 
The coroner’s jury held that under the circum¬ 
stances the party of the second part was justified 
in shooting first if he was quick enough. 
Occasionally, a stage -coach would be held up, 
and the passengers robbed, or perhaps only Wells 
Fargo & Company’s treasure -chest taken, but 
such things were of rare occurrence, and I 
never had any such experience. If one attended 
strictly to his own business, and was careful 
not to do anything which might even seem to 
infringe upon the rights of others, there was 
little chance of getting into trouble. The fact 
that nearly everyone carried a revolver probably 
had something to do with the safetly of property. 
Even the so-called “bad men” were of a different 
type from those who rob and murder in our big 
cities. I was once making a solitary horseback 
journey, and found myself about noon, one day, 
not far from where a desperado named Dutch 
Ike had a cabin and a rich but undeveloped claim 
a few miles from where is now the mining town 
of Ely in eastern Nevada. He was not a thief, 
but had killed two or three men in what he 
claimed was fair fight, and for good and suffi¬ 
cient reasons. One such incident public opinion 
tolerated, but when it -occurred two or three 
times, the party began to be looked at askance, 
and so the man had a bad name. I rode over 
to his -place, found him -at home and alone, and 
introduced myself. 
It happened that my family name was well 
known all over the state, from an elder brother 
whose 'business relations had made it so, and I 
had only to mention it almost anywhere to be 
favorably received. 
In this case my welcome was most hospitable. 
I was supplied with feed for my horse, and then 
invited into the cabin where my h-os-t cooked a 
good dinner for us both. After dinner we amus¬ 
ed ourselves by shooting at a mark with rifles as 
I had my Winchester .44 Sixteen shot rifle with 
me, and when I resumed my journey it was with 
cordial good wishes on both sides. 
There is not much more to tell of my trip. 
The stage c-oach -line between Sacramento and 
Virginia City, which a few years before had been 
a continuous stage coach trip over roads kept al¬ 
ways in good condition, with splendid horses and 
all equipments of the best, a journey long to be 
remembered by anyone who has taken it, was 
now -broken up into alternate wagon and rail¬ 
way rides. My ticket purchased at Council 
Bluffs was good whatever the means of convey¬ 
ance. 
The stage coach left Virginia City at nine 
o’clock in the morning, and shortly after noon 
we reached Verdi, to which place the Central 
Pacific Railway Company had laid down rails 
from Truckee, about twenty-five miles to the 
westward, and were running a couple of rude 
passenger cars back and -forth over this stretch. 
Here we left the stage coach, and were hauled 
397 
by a small construction engine to the end of the 
track where we again transferred ourselves to 
the horse-drawn vehicle, and spent a rather cold 
night crossing the Sierra Nevadas where the 
snow was still deep. At Colfax, which we reach¬ 
ed at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, we 
again boarded the cars, and were in Sacramento 
at two o’clock P. M. of April 15th, seventeen 
days from Cheyenne. 
During that time I had slept eleven nights in 
the stage coach, one on the floor of the station 
at Bridgers Pass, and the other five comfortably 
in bed at Salt Lake, Austin and Virginia City. 
I was feeling in splendid condition, and so little 
fatigued that I attended a dancing party on the 
very night of my return home. 
It is fine to be twenty-five years old, and in 
the enjoyment of vigorous health. 
The End. 
FOOD CAMPERS WONT EAT. 
What they ate in 1870 during the siege of 
Paris is of interest at the present juncture. 
Elephant soup took the -place of turtle, kan¬ 
garoos and bears were in the entree division, 
while stuffed donkey’s head was considered a 
delicacy. Later roast wolf and roast cat gar¬ 
nished with rats were not despised. Altogether 
a culinary regime more curious than appetizing. 
CANOEING. 
A. C. A. Membersip 
New Members Proposed: 
Northern Division—Ernest H. Norris, 8 Ori¬ 
ole Ave., Centre Island, Toronto, Ont., Can.; 
Charles Douglas Gilchrist, Centre Island, To¬ 
ronto, Ont, Can.; Harvey H. Keens, 107 Front 
St., E., Toronto, Ont., Can., all by Aubrey E. 
Ireland. 
New Members Elected: 
Atlantic Division—7009, Ralph Maurice Hun¬ 
ter, 334 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
CAUGHT IN A SPIDER’S WEB. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Yesterday, at the house of Mr. Charles Shel¬ 
don, the Alaska explorer and our greatest au¬ 
thority on American wild sheep, I saw a curious 
thing. 
In the woodhouse, hanging from a ro-lled-up 
awning and about four or five feet below it, 
was found a dead wood pewee(Contopus virens) 
suspended by a thread of cobweb. The bird had 
been dead for a day and a half, or two days 
The cobweb by which it hung was exceedingly 
tough and elastic. It was attached to the end 
of the right wing, to both feet and to the tail. 
From the signs I concluded that the bird had 
flown against this old, -tough cobweb and been 
held there; that its flutterings and struggles had 
wrapped the cobweb around its feet and tail, 
an-d that it had beaten itself to death in its 
struggles to get free. 
Cases of birds caught by threads, strings, or 
strands of hair used in nest building have been 
often recorded, but this is the first time that 
I have seen a bird caught in a cobweb, though I 
am not sure that something of the sort has not 
been -previously put on record.—-G. B. G. 
HORSE AND HOUND— Roger D. Williams.' A 
book on fox hunting and the American fox hound. 
Cloth, illus. Postpaid, $2.50. 
