moil and commo-
tion, are no more. Their imitators are there, but in
camps where men would be glad to pay a woman
well to wash his shirt, and where every man strong
enough to swing a pick can get employment, there
is no excuse for the one nor apology for the other.
Water will seek its level. As a rule, the low are low avoid them, particularly in America, more par ticularly on the Pacific side of America. Give a man five years, and, with unfortunate exceptions of course, he will find his level on the Pacific, and his place, whether high or low, as naturally as a stream of water. Many of our old gamblers took up the law. A great many took to politics ; some advanced far into distinction, even to Congress, and were heard when they got there. Many fell in Nicaragua. One or two became ministers, and made some mark in the world. One is even now particularly famous for his laconic sword-cuts of speech, born of the gambling table, when he is excited and earnestly addressing his congregation of miners in the mountains.
As a rule, these men remained true to the Pacific, and refused to leave it. The miners gathered up their gold, and returned to their old homes ; the merchants did the same as the camps went down, but these men remained. They have, to use their own expression, mostly " passed in their checks," but what few of them are still found, no matter what they fol low, are honest, brave old men.
Nature had knighted them at their births as of noble blood, and they could not but remain men even in the calling of knaves.
