I think my friend was, perhaps, somewhat prejudiced. He had, probably, invested in mining "feet," and found out he had made a "permanent investment," with slight prospect of "dividends." Nevertheless, Prescott had been much overrated and bepraised, and, consequently, suffered somewhat in the estimation of strangers. We found it well laid-out, on a scale of Magnificent Distances, like its illustrious prototype, the National Capital, and lacking only--buildings and people to be a fine city. Its site, though nearly six thousand feet above the sea, is a good one, along the undulating bottoms of Granite Creek, about a mile or so from Fort Whipple, then the chief military-post in northern Arizona. Its houses were grouped mostly around a spacious plaza, after the old Spanish custom, though a few straggled off into ragged streets either way. They were chiefly of logs and rough lumber, and guiltless of paint, though some brick and adobe structures appeared here and there. The population seemed to be between four and five hundred. The autumn previous, it had been largely increased by a notable immigration from Montana, which came to Prescott with the expectation of finding rich placer mines, from what they had seen published about the region. But the most of these had already left, cruelly disappointed, and others would follow, if they had the means. The barber, who shaved me one day, proved to be a Montanian, from Helena City. I asked him, casually, what he thought of Arizona. "Why, you see, stranger, I pays for this yer room eight dollars a month, in "dust." For a room in Helena City, of the same size, I paid last summer seventy-five dollars per month." "You mean _that_ for a fair comparison of Arizona, with Montana?" "Sartin! Thet's about it naow, you bet! Our fellers, who come down yer with me last fall, most all gone; others leavin' every week. I'm goin' to vamose, too, 'fore long, you bet!"