transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of
her sin that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive
tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemptuous faces of her
masculine associates. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think,
touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was "rough on Sal,"
and, in the contemplation of her condition, for a moment rose superior
to the fact that he had an ace and two bowers in his sleeve.

It will be seen also that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no
means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People
had been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and with no
possibility of return; but this was the first time that anybody had
been introduced _ab initio_. Hence the excitement.

"You go in there, Stumpy," said a prominent citizen known as
"Kentuck," addressing one of the loungers. "Go in there, and see what
you kin do. You've had experience in them things."

Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes,
had been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to
some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp--a city
of refuge--was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice,
and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on
the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside,
smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue.

The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these were
actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were
reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives
and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion