outside these huts the uptorn earth--such were the camps which
dotted the trails of the stampedes across inhospitable deserts
and mountain ranges. Church and school were unknown. Law there
was none, for of organized society there was none. The women who
lived there were unworthy of the name of woman. The men strode
about in the loose dress of the camp, sometimes without
waistcoat, sometimes coatless, shod with heavy boots, always
armed.

If we look for causes contributory to the history of the
mining-camp, we shall find one which ordinarily is
overlooked--the invention of Colt's revolving pistol. At the time
of the Civil War, though this weapon was not old, yet it had
attained very general use throughout the frontier. That was
before the day of modern ammunition. The six-shooter of the
placer days was of the old cap-and-ball type, heavy,
long-barreled, and usually wooden-handled. It was the general
ownership of these deadly weapons which caused so much bloodshed
in the camps. The revolver in the hands of a tyro is not
especially serviceable, but it attained great deadliness in the
hands of an expert user. Such a man, naturally of quick nerve
reflexes, skillful and accurate in the use of the weapon through
long practice, became a dangerous, and for a time an
unconquerable, antagonist.

It is a curious fact that the great Montana fields were doubly
discovered, in part by men coming east from California, and in
part by men passing west in search of new gold-fields. The first
discovery of gold in Montana was made on Gold Creek by a
half-breed trapper named Francois, better known as Be-net-see.