of the prosperity of the miners. There was one gambler in particular, Hudson his name was, a modest and refined fellow, thoroughly honest and sober—even though his hair was of the dissemblino; color, red—who attended to his business as faithfully and methodically as did the merchant, the miner, or the baker, dealing usually till twelve o'clock at night on Indian bar, and then walking up to his boardinghouse on Rich bar to sleep. Hudson every day passed by Duke's claim ; and though each had a good word for the other, and there existed the best of feeling between them, Duke never thought any more of patronizing Hudson's game than of hiring the doctor to amputate a perfectly sound leg. He did not want the gambler's money; he was very sure he did not want the gambler to get his money; he had other thoughts and occupations for both his mind and money than gambling. It had been so with him ever since he was in the country, now three years; he lived a perfect life, amidst many wild and abnormal doinofs, and all without knowinof it.
"One Saturday night, after a hard week's work, during which he had been much alone, feeling that he would like to meet and talk with the boys, he went down to Indian bar, and entered the large canvas house which stood in the middle of the town and served as drinking, gambling, and general congregation shop. With its strong subdued light radiating far into the darkness, while yet upon the high divide, separating the two bars, the wayfarer looked down upon it as on a great glow-worm; or if fancy struck another strain, then as the canopied entrance to the Anacheron pit.
It was early yet, and gambling had not fairly set in. To drinking saloons and gaming tables Duke John was as indifferent as to the pack-saddles and molasses kegs of the merchandise store when he had no need for either. He would not drink at a bar any more than at a brook when he was not thirsty. His
