The saloon is full to overflowing--full of brawny rough, and grisly men; full of ribald songs and maudlin curses; full of foul atmospheres, impregnated with the fumes of vile whisky, and worse tobacco, and full of sights and scenes, exciting and repulsive. As we enter and work our way toward the center of the apartment, our attention is attracted by a coarse, brutal "tough," evidently just fresh in from the diggings; who, mounted on the summit of an empty whisky cask, is exhorting in rough language, and in the tones of a bellowing bull, to an audience of admiring miners assembled at his feet, which, by the way, are not of the most diminutive pattern imaginable. We will listen: "Feller coots and liquidarians, behold before ye a real descendant uv Cain and Abel. Ye'll reckolect, ef ye've ever bin ter camp-meetin', that Abel got knocked out o' time by his cuzzin Cain, an becawse Abel war misproperly named, and warn't _able_ when the crysis arriv ter defen' himsel' in an able manner. "Hed he bin 'heeled' wi' a shipment uv Black Hills sixes, thet would hev _enabled_ him to distinguish hisself fer superyer ability. Now, as I sed before, I'm a lineal descendant uv ther notorious Ain and Cable, and I've lit down hyar among ye ter explain a few p'ints 'bout true blessedness and true cussedness. "Oh! brethern, I tell ye I'm a snorter, I am, when I git a-goin'--a wild screechin' cattymount, right down frum ther sublime spheres up Starkey--ar' a regular epizootic uv religyun, sent down frum clouddum and scattered permiscously ter ther forty winds uv ther earth." We pass the "cattymount," and presently come to a table at which a young and handsome "pilgrim," and a ferret-eyed sharp are engaged at cards. The first mentioned is a tall, robust fellow, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-three years of age, with clear-cut features, dark lustrous eyes, and teeth of pearly whiteness. His hair is long and curling, and a soft brown mustache, waxed at the ends, is almost perfection itself. Evidently he is of quick temperament, for he handles the cards with a swift, nervous dexterity that surprises even the professional sharp himself, who is a black, swarthy-looking customer, with "villain" plainly written in every lineament of his countenance; his eyes, hair, and a tremendous mustache that he occasionally strokes, are of a jetty black; did you ever notice it?--dark hair and complexion predominate among the gambling fraternity. Perhaps this is owing to the condition of the souls of some of these characters. The professional sharp in our case was no exception to the rule. He was attired in the hight of fashion, and the diamond cluster, inevitably to be found there, was on his shirt front; a jewel of wonderful size and brilliancy. "Ah! curse the luck!" exclaimed the sharp, slapping down the cards; "you have won again, pilgrim, and I am five hundred out. By the gods, your luck is something astonishing!"