CHAPTER III.

THE "CATTYMOUNT"--A QUARREL AND ITS RESULTS.


The "Metropolitan" saloon in Deadwood, one week subsequent to the
events last narrated, was the scene of a larger "jamboree" than for
many weeks before.

It was Saturday night, and up from the mines of Gold Run, Bobtail,
Poor Man's Pocket, and Spearfish, and down from the Deadwood in
miniature, Crook City, poured a swarm of rugged, grisly gold-diggers,
the blear-eyed, used-up-looking "pilgrim," and the inevitable wary
sharp, ever on the alert for a new buck to fleece.

The "Metropolitan" was then, as now, the headquarters of the Black
Hills metropolis for arriving trains and stages, and as a natural
consequence received a goodly share of the public patronage.

A well-stocked bar of liquors in Deadwood was _non est_ yet the saloon
in question boasted the best to be had. Every bar has its clerk at a
pair of tiny scales, and he is ever kept more than busy weighing out
the shining dust that the toiling miner has obtained by the sweat of
his brow. And if the deft-fingered clerk cannot put six ounces of dust
in his own pouch of a night, it clearly shows that he is not long in
the business.