"Luck? Why, I never seed anything like it! Yer might give him the sweepin\'s of a saloon to wash, an\' he\'d pan out a nugget ev\'ry time—do it ez shure as shootin\'!"

This rather emphatic speech proceeded one day from the lips of Cairo Jake, an industrious washer of the golden sands of California; but it was evident to all intelligent observers that even language so strong as to seem almost figurative did not fully express Cairo Jake\'s conviction, for he shook his head so positively that his hat fell off into the stream, which found a level only an inch or two below Jacob\'s boottops, and he stamped his right foot so vigorously as to endanger his equilibrium.

"Well," sighed a discontented miner from New Jersey, "Providence knows His own bizness best, I s\'pose; but I could have found him a feller that could have made a darn sight better use of his good luck—ef he\'d had any—than Tom Chafflin. He don\'t know nothin\' \'bout the worth of money—never seed him drunk in my life, an\' he don\'t seem to get no fun out of keerds."

"Providence\'ll hev a season\'s job a-satisfyin\' you, old Redbank," replied Cairo Jake; "but it\'s all-fired queer, for all that. Ef a feller could only learn how he done it, \'twouldn\'t seem so funny; but he don\'t seem to have no way in p\'tickler about him that a feller ken find out."

"Fact," said Redbank, with a solemn groan. "I\'ve studied his face—why, ef I\'d studied half ez hard at school I\'d be a president, or missionary, or somethin\' now—but I don\'t make it out. Once I \'llowed \'twas cos he didn\'t keer, an\' was kind o\' reckless—sort o\' went it blind. So I tried it on a-playin\' monte."

"Well, how did it work?" asked the gentleman from Cairo.

"Work?" echoed the Jerseyman, with the air of an unsuccessful candidate musing over the "saddest words of thought or pen;" "I started with thirteen ounces, an\' in twenty minutes I was borryin\' the price of a drink from the dealer. That\'s how it worked."

Certain other miners looked sorrowful; it was evident that they, too, had been reckless, and had trusted to luck, and that in a place where gold-digging and gambling were the only two means of proving the correctness of their theory, it was not difficult to imagine by which one they were disappointed.

"Long an\' short of it\'s jest this," resumed Cairo Jake, straightening himself for a moment, and picking some coarse gravel from his pan, "Tom Chafflin\'s always in luck. His claim pays better\'n anybody else\'s; he always gets the lucky number at a raffle, his shovel don\'t never break, an\' his chimbly ain\'t always catchin\' a-fire. He\'s gone down to \'Frisco now, an\' I\'ll bet a dozen ounces that jest cos he\'s aboard, the old boat\'ll go down an\' back without runnin\' aground a solitary durned time."

No one took up Cairo Jake\'s bet, so that it was evident he uttered the general sentiment of the mining camp of Quicksilver Bar.

Every man, in the temporary silence which followed Jake\'s summary, again bent industriously over his pan, until the scene suggested an amateur water-cure establishment returning thanks for basins of gruel, when suddenly the whole line was startled into suspension of labor by the appearance of London George, who was waving his hat with one hand and a red silk handkerchief with the other, while with his left foot he was performing certain pas not necessary to successful pedestrianism.

"Quicksilver Bar hain\'t up to snuff—oh, no! Ain\'t a-catchin\' up with Frisco—not at all! Little Chestnut don\'t know how to run a saloon, an\' make other shops weep—not in the least—not at all—oh, no!"

"Eh?" inquired half a dozen.

"Don\'t b\'leeve me if you don\'t want to, but just bet against it \'fore you go to see—that\'s all!" continued London George, fanning himself with his hat.

"George," said Judge Baggs, with considerable asperity, "ef you are an Englishman, try to speak your native tongue, an\' explain what you mean by actin\' ez ef you\'d jes\' broke out of a lunatic \'sylum. Speak quick, or I\'ll fine you drinks for the crowd."

"Just as lieve you would," said the unabashed Briton, "seein\'—seein\' Chestnut\'s got a female—a woman—a lady cashier—there! Guess them San Francisco saloons ain\'t the only ones that knows what\'s what—not any!"

"I don\'t b\'leeve a word of it," said the judge, washing his hands rather hastily; "but I\'ll jest see for myself."

Cairo Jake looked thoughtfully on the retreating form of the judge, and remarked:

"He\'ll feel ashamed of hisself when he gits thar an\' finds he\'ll hev to drink alone. Reckon I\'ll go up, jest to keep him from feelin\' bad."

Several others seemed impressed by the same idea, and moved quite briskly in the direction of Chestnut\'s saloon.

The judge, protected by his age and a pair of green spectacles, boldly entered, while his followers dispersed themselves sheepishly just outside the open door, past which they marched and re-marched as industriously as a lot of special sentries.

There was no doubt about it. Chestnut had installed a lady at the end of the bar, and as, between breakfast and dinner, there was but little business done at the saloon, the lady was amusing herself by weighing corks and pebbles in the tiny scales which were to weigh the metallic equivalent for refreshments.

The judge contemplated the arrangements with considerable satisfaction, and immediately called up all thirsty souls present.

Those outside the door entered with the caution of veterans in an enemy\'s country, and with a bashfulness that was painful to contemplate. They stood before the bar, they glanced cautiously to the right, and gently inclined their heads backward, until only a line of eyes and noses were visible from the cashier\'s desk.

Then the judge raised his green glasses a moment, and smiled benignantly on t............