children.
Not one, nor ten, but thousands, have thus lived and died. The disappointed mhier would not write until he had something pleasing to communicate; the suc- cessful one preferred to carry home his own good news to sending it in a letter, which he did or did not ; and thus many a poor heart at home ached on to the end. Some, and as a rule, the most pusillanimous, crept back, spectre-like, to their old homes, broken in body and spirit ; some few returned in health, successful, and joyous; but by far the greater number, heart- broken and remorseful, laid their bones along the dis- turbed, water-courses, on the canon sides, in upturned gulches, or scattered them unburied over the wilder- ness of distant hills.
Some of the mountain towns, after having been dried up in the summer, were literally frozen up in the winter, thus leaving but little time comparatively in which to dig and wash out the gold. A frozen-up mining town in these daj^s would be a curiosity. Work and business are at a standstill. Every day is more like Sunday than any Sunday the prosperous mining town ever sees. All is idleness ; gaunt forms flit list- lessly about the streets, sometimes gathering in groups to swear at the times, and breaking out in spasmodic sports when grumbling itself becomes unbearable. Even vice stagnates. Men have not the wherewith to play for money or whiskey, and so shuflle and deal the cards for fun. Money disappears from circulation, and a dun is looked upon as a man partially insane. Medical men drive a fair traffic as long as the liquor lasts, mending in the morning the broken heads, and setting the dislocated joints of the night previous ; but when the fuel for that infernal fire is spent, then peace and good fellowship usually prevail.
It was by no means all chance that led to success or failure in the mines. Industry and economy, here as elsewhere, were nine times in ten to be rewarded in a greater or less degree. Multitudes of croakers sitting on their haunches encircled the valley of Call-
