1859.] OUR MOST EXTRAORDINARY LANDLORD. 185

'Imagination fondly stoops to trace,

The parlor splendors of that festive place.'

It was twelve feet square, of hewn pine logs new and smooth, the cracks within chinked with wood and outside plastered with mud. A great fire-place of sticks and dried soil occupied one corner. A single chair of elders fresh from the forest, with the bark still on, a little table of the same material, and the rare luxury of a mattress resting upon slats laid across from one log to another, constituted the furniture. The roof was of baked mud upon a layer of split logs and grass; the floor of hard, smooth earth. No window invited adventurous burglars, and the solitary door which swung upon wooden hinges, opened to the touch of no key but a pen-knife. We extemporized a shelf from which a few curiously assorted books looked down with a bewildered air, carpeted the ground with coffee-sacks-and did we not take our ease in our inn?

A few days later, the owner of the cabin came down from the mines and looked in upon us quite unexpectedly; but observing that the nine points of the law were in our favor, he apologized humbly for his intrusion, (most obsequious and marvelous of landlords!) begged us to make ourselves entirely at home, and then withdrew, to jump the best vacant cabin he could find, until the departure of his non-paying tenants. We design exhibiting him at the next world's fair as the best specimen of the Polite Gentleman on the terrestrial globe.

There was little business; money was in great demand and loaned on collateral security at twenty-five per cent. a month.

The experience of every mining region demonstrates that salt pork is the most nutritive and stimulating diet for miners, whose labor is the most exhausting in the whole world. All plains travelers also use it, on the theory of the shrewd philosopher, that no other substance contains so much board in so little com pass.' As agriculture was not begun, vegetables were unattainable for love or money. Late in the season however, a few enormous watermelons appeared in market, selling at two or three dollars apiece. The chief meat was antelope, always abundant at four cents per pound. Though more tasteless than the flesh of the deer, it is pleasant and nutritive.

186

'OUR BEST SOCIETY' IN DENVER.

[1859.

Denver society was a strange medley. There were Americans from every quarter of the Union, Mexicans, Indians, halfbreeds, trappers, speculators, gamblers, desperadoes, broken-down politicians and honest men. Almost every day was enlivened by its little shooting match. While the great gaming saloon was crowded with people, drunken ruffians sometimes fired five or six shots from their revolvers, frightening everybody pell-mell out of the room, but seldom wounding any one. One day I heard the bar-keeper politely ask a man lying upon a bench to remove. The recumbent replied to the request with his revolver. Indeed firing at this bar-tender was a common amusement among the guests. At first he bore it laughingly, but one day a shot grazed his ear, whereupon, remarking that there was such a thing as carrying a joke too far and that this was 'about played out,' he buckled on two revolvers and swore he would kill the next man who took aim at him. He was not troubled afterward.

Gaming was universal. Denver and Auraria, (now West Denver,) contained about one thousand people, with three hundred buildings, nearly all of hewn pine logs. One third were unfinished and roofless, having been erected the previous winter for speculative purposes. There were very few glass windows or doors and but two or three board floors. The nearest saw-mill was forty miles away, and the occupants of the cabins lived upon the native earth, hard, smooth and clean-swept. One lady, by sewing together corn-sacks for a carpet and covering her log walls with sheets and table cloths, gave to her mansion an appearance of rare luxury. Chairs were glories yet to come. Stools tables and pole-bedsteads were the staple furniture, while rough boxes did duty as bureaus and cupboards. Hearths and fire-places were of adobe, as in Utah California and Mexico. Chimneys were of sticks of wood piled up like children's cob-houses and plastered with mud. A few roofs were covered with shingles split by hand, but most were of logs spread with prairie grass and covered with earth. They turned water well, even during the daily showers of June and July. During the rest of the year rain is unknown.

Between my cabin and the Denver House were a dozen Indian lodges, enlivened by squaws dressing the skins of wild animals or cooking puppies for dinner, naked children playing in the hot

1859.] A FINISHED SPECIMEN OF A GAMBLER. 187

sand and braves lounging on the ground, wearing no clothing except a narrow strip of cloth about the hips.

Hundreds of immigrants passed through daily; their white, unending caravans stretching across the river to the foot of the range. Daily too a great refluent wave rolled in from the mountains-dissatisfied miners who sold their superfluous provisions and tools at less than cost and started for California or turned homeward.

The Denver House was a long low one-story edifice, one hundred and thirty feet by thirty-six, with log walls and windows and roof of white sheeting. In its spacious saloon, the whole width of the building, the earth was well sprinkled to keep down dust. The room was always crowded with swarthy men armed and in rough costumes. The bar sold enormous quantities of cigars and liquors. At half a dozen tables the gamblers were always busy, day and evening. One in woolen shirt and jockey cap drove a thriving business at three-card-monte, which netted him about one hundred dollars per day. Standing behind his little table he would select three cards from his pack, show their faces to the crowd, and thus begin:

'Here you are, gentlemen; this ace of hearts is the winning card. Watch it closely. Follow it with your eye as I shuffle. Here it is, and now here, now here and now,' (laying the three on the table with faces down)-' where? If you point it out the first time you win; but if you miss you lose. Here it is you see,' (turning it up ;) 'now watch it again,' (shuffling.) This ace of hearts gentlemen is the winning card. I take no bets from paupers, cripples or orphan children. The ace of hearts. It is my regular trade, gentlemen-to move my hands quicker than your eyes. I always have two chances to your one. The ace of hearts. If your sight is quick enough, you beat me and I pay; if not, I beat you and take your money. The ace of hearts; who will go me twenty?'

By this time some bystander who has watched the winning card closely is confident that he can point it out. It seems perfectly simple. Beside, he noticed that one corner was slightly turned up; and is it not there face downward with the corner still elevated? Confidently he throws down a twenty-dollar gold