MAKING HIS MARK.


Black Hat was, in 1851, about as peaceful and well-regulated a village
as could be found in the United States.

It was not on the road to any place, so it grew but little; the dirt
paid steadily and well, so but few of the original settlers went away.

The march of civilization, with its churches and circuses, had not yet
reached Black Hat; marriages never convulsed the settlement with the pet
excitement of villages generally, and the inhabitants were never arrayed
at swords' point by either religion, politics or newspapers.

To be sure, the boys gambled every evening and all day Sunday; but a
famous player, who once passed that way on a prospecting-trip, declared
that even a preacher would get sick of such playing; for, as everybody
knew everybody else's game, and as all men who played other than
squarely had long since been required to leave, there was an utter
absence of pistols at the tables.

Occasional disagreements took place, to be sure--they have been taking
place, even among the best people, since the days of Cain and Abel; but
all difficulties at Black Hat which did not succumb to force of jaw were
quietly locked in the bosoms of the disputants until the first Sunday.

Sunday, at Black Hat, orthodoxically commenced at sunset on Saturday,
and was piously extended through to working-time on Monday morning, and
during this period of thirty-six hours there was submitted to
arbitrament, by knife or pistol, all unfinished rows of the week.