You wonder if any of the “old crowd” now living, live over as you do the past life here; if a single one within the last ten years has ever revisited the spot; or if any of them have any desire to revisit it. Some of them did so once. There was Jake Bennett. As late as ’62, Jake, who had removed to the next county, would come every summer on a pilgrimage to “see the boys,” and the boys at Dry Bar were even then sadly reduced in number, for the camp ran down very quickly within the four years dating from ’58. But Jake was faithful to old memories and associations, and proved it by the ten-miles’ walk he was obliged to take to reach Dry Bar. Dry Bar was never on a regular stage route. Jake was an ex-Philadelphian and called rest “west” and violin “wiolin.” But no one comes here now, at least on any such errand. It’s a troublesome and rather expensive locality to reach and mere sentiment does not pay. The nearest resident is a Missouri hog-rancher, whose house is above on the hill a couple of miles away. He neither knows nor cares for Dry Bar’s former history. He came here but ten years ago. His half-wild swine are ambushed about in the shelter of the elder and buckeye bushes, and frightened at your approach plunge snorting into the deeper thickets. Here it is. The remains of your own cabin chimney, a pile of smoke-blackened stones in the tall grass. Of the cabin every vestige has disappeared. You built that chimney yourself. It was an awkward affair, but it served to carry out the smoke, and when finished you surveyed it with pleasure and some pride, for it was your chimney. Have you ever felt “snugger” and more cozy and comfortable since than you did on the long, rainy winter nights, when, the supper finished and the crockery washed, you and your “pard” sat by the glowing coals and prepared your pipes for the evening smoke? There were great hopes and some great strikes on Dry Bar in those days; that was in ’52. Mining was still in the pan, rocker and long tom era; sluices were just coming in. Hydraulicking 100-foot banks and washing hills off the face of the earth had not been thought of. The dispute as to the respective merits of the long vs. the short-handled shovel was still going on. A gray or red shirt was a badge of honor. The deep river-beds were held to contain enormous store of golden nuggets. River mining was in its wing and coffer-dam phase.