"No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the
presence of ladies."

It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and
laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing
in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless
wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit
together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the
woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose
upon the swooning atmosphere; far in he empty sky a solitary oesophagus
slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and
the peace of God.

October is the time--1900; Hope Canyon is the place, a silver-mining camp
away down in the Esmeralda region. It is a secluded spot, high and
remote; recent as to discovery; thought by its occupants to be rich in
metal--a year or two's prospecting will decide that matter one way or the
other. For inhabitants, the camp has about two hundred miners, one white
woman and child, several Chinese washermen, five squaws, and a dozen
vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin robes, battered plug hats, and
tin-can necklaces. There are no mills as yet; no church, no newspaper.
The camp has existed but two years; it has made no big strike; the world
is ignorant of its name and place.

On both sides of the canyon the mountains rise wall-like, three thousand
feet, and the long spiral of straggling huts down in its narrow bottom
gets a kiss from the sun only once a day, when he sails over at noon.
The village is a couple of miles long; the cabins stand well apart from
each other. The tavern is the only "frame" house--the only house, one