camp, had been so wrought upon by the tale of one missionary who had
lost his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his
only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally
treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the
highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the
shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were
then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with
a grim note from Pentecost, to the society's treasurer at Boston. As the
society was controlled by a denomination which does not understand how
good can come out of evil, no detail of this contribution ever appeared
in print. But a few months thereafter there _did_ appear at Hanney's a
thin-chested, large-headed youth, with a heavily loaded mule, who
announced himself as duly accredited by the aforementioned society to
preach the Gospel among the miners. The boys received him cordially,
and Pentecost offered him the nightly hospitality of curling up to sleep
in front of the bar-room fireplace. His mule's load proved to consist
largely of tracts, which he vigorously distributed, and which the boys
used to wrap up dust in. He nearly starved while trying to learn to cook
his own food, so some of the boys took him in and fed him. He tried to
persuade the boys to stop drinking, and they good-naturedly laughed; but
when he attempted to break up the "little game" which was the only
amusement of the camp--the only _steady_ amusement, for fights were
short and irregular--the camp rose in its wrath, and the young man
hastily rose and went for his mule.

But at the time of which this story treats a missionary would have fared
even worse, for the boys where wholly absorbed by a very unrighteous,
but still very darling, pleasure. A pair of veteran knifeists, who had
fought each other at sight for almost ten years every time they met, had
again found themselves in the same settlement, and Hanney's had the