VI

"Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love - the one
Born for me!"

- Bret Harte.



Names of settlements in the '49 days were often as "Rough an Ready" as
the reasons for their being!

Most of them spoke, more or less eloquently, for themselves and no man
picked by fame in glowing wise from the heterogeneous mass of persons
could hope to escape a nickname.

A miner was discovered roaming down a river bed minus his nether
garments, and lives to this day in the appellation of Shirt Tail canyon.
Two men fought. One of them lost an eye in the manner indicated by Gouge
Eye. Hundreds of wild geese were wont to gather on a sunny mesa above
the river. It made a splendid level town called Wild Goose Flat. The
plains were covered with "Antelope." The end gate of a prairie schooner
was lost on a hill, and Tail Gate mountain came into being.

Humbug Creek panned light with gold. Red Dog, Hangtown, Round Tent
Claims, Dry Diggings, Let 'Er Rip, You Bet, Yuba Dam, One Horse Town,
and Hell's Delight shriek for themselves, or should!