and home distilled liquor in Alaska.

"See here," says I, "a prairie dog and a rattler can hole up
together, but humans has got to be congenial, so, seein' as we're all
stuck to live in the same room till this blizzard blizzes out, let's
forget our troubles. I'm as game a Hibernian as the next, but I
don't hibernate till there's a blaze of mutual respect going."

"Blaze away," says she, "though I leave it to the crowd if you don't
look and act like a liar and a grave robber." Her speech is sure
full of artless hostilities.

Ain't ever seen her? Lord! I thought everybody knew Annie Black.
She drifted into camp one day, tall, slab-sided, ornery to the view,
and raising fifty or upwards; disposition uncertain as frozen
dynamite. Her ground plans and elevations looked like she was laid
out for a man, but the specifications hadn't been follered. We ain't
consumed by curiosity regarding the etymology of every stranger that
drifts in, and as long as he totes his own pack, does his
assessments, and writes his location notices proper, it goes.
Leastways, it went till she hit town. In a month she had the
brotherly love of that camp gritting its teeth and throwing back
twisters. 'Twas all legitimate, too, and there never was a
pennyweight of scandal connected with her name. No, sir! Far's
conduct goes, she's always been the shinin' female example of this
country; but them qualities let her out.

First move was to jump Bat Ruggles's town lot. He had four courses
of logs laid for a cabin when "Scotty" Bell came in from the hills
with $1800 in coarse gold that he'd rocked out of a prospect shaft on