penetrated the Salmon River Range. Oro Fino, in Idaho, was old in
1861. The next great strikes were to be made around Florence.
Here the indomitable packer from the West, conquering unheard-of
difficulties, brought in whiskey, women, pianos, food, mining
tools. Naturally all these commanded fabulous prices. The price
for each and all lay underfoot. Man, grown superman, could
overleap time itself by a stroke of the pick! What wonder
delirium reigned!

These events became known in the Mississippi Valley and farther
eastward. And now there came hurrying out from the older regions
many more hundreds and thousands eager to reach a land not so far
as California, but reputed to be quite as rich. It was then, as
the bull-trains came in from the East, from the head of
navigation on the Missouri River, that the western outfitting
points of Walla Walla and Lewiston lost their importance.

Southward of the Idaho camps the same sort of story was repeating
itself. Nevada had drawn to herself a portion of the wild men of
the stampedes. Carson for its day (1859-60) was a capital not
unlike the others. Some of its men had come down from the upper
fields, some had arrived from the East over the old Santa Fe
Trail, and yet others had drifted in from California.

All the camps were very much alike. A straggling row of log
cabins or huts of motley construction; a few stores so-called,
sometimes of logs, or, if a saw-mill was at hand, of rude sawn
boards; a number of saloons, each of which customarily also
supported a dance-hall; a series of cabins or huts where dwelt
individual men, each doing his own cooking and washing; and