"As I closed the front door and stepped out upon the sidewalk, a tall
man lounged across to me from the doorway of a saloon across the
road--a lumberer, by his dress. He wore a large soft hat, a striped
flannel shirt open at the neck, a broad leathern belt, and muddy
trousers tucked into muddy wading-boots. His appearance was
picturesque enough without help from his dress. He had a mighty
length of arm and breadth of shoulders; a handsome, but thin and
almost delicately fair, face, with blue eyes, and a surprisingly
well-kept beard. The colour of this beard and of his hair--which he
wore pretty long--was a light auburn. Just now the folds of his
raiment were full of moist sawdust; and as he came he brought the
scent of the pine-woods with him.

"'How's the Bishop?' asked this giant, jerking his head towards the
little balcony of No. 67.

"Before I could hit on a discreet answer, he followed the question up
with another:

"'What'll you take?'

"I saw that he had something to say, and allowed him to lead the way
to a saloon a little way down the road. 'Simpson's Pioneers'
Symposium' was the legend above the door. A small, pimply-faced man
in seedy black--whom I guessed at once, and correctly, to be
'Huz-and-Buz'--lounged by the bar inside; and across the counter the
bar-keeper had his banjo slung, and was gently strumming the
accompaniment of 'Hey, Juliana!'