They stand in a row at the bar. The barkeeper is mixing the “long” and the short drinks. Each man waits, says nothing and eyes every motion of the bartender. The silence is impressive. All is ready. Each glass is grasped and raised, and then from each to each, and more than all, from all to the drink donor, there is a nod, that incantatory phrase is uttered, “Well, here’s luck,” and the poison is down. As it rasps, they call “Ahem!” with varied degrees of modulation. But this is a careful and prudent miner and he now repairs to the store. There his dust is weighed, sold, and the week’s provision ordered. His combined partners’ “divvys” are put aside in a lump and safely stored. Now the weight is off his mind. He returns to the attractions of camp. These are not numerous. There is the Magnolia, the Bella Union, the Court Exchange, the post and express office. There are the “boys.” He learns the news of the county or district. The Mount Vernon is paying four dollars per day. Long Shortman has gone on another spree and hasn’t done any work for the last ten days. Jimmy McNeil has sent for his wife’s sister. She is unmarried. Sullivan has had another row with his wife and she has complained to the authorities. Sam Gedney is going to run for County Clerk on the Democratic ticket. Bob Delmame lost $200 at the game the other night. A San Francisco company have bought the Crazy gulch quartz lead and will put a ten-stamp mill on it. The schoolmaster was drunk last Friday night. Ford shot at McGillis the other night, but did not hit him. There is scandal and talk concerning the Frenchwoman who keeps the peanut stand and the Justice of the Peace. The Wiley girls, two sisters who have recently moved into camp, are making a sensation, and their small parlor at times won’t hold the crowd of semi-bald and unconsciously middle-aged miners and others who are calling on them with possible matrimony in prospective. They may pass along the street about the middle of the afternoon and such “ragging out” was never seen before in this camp. The curious have investigated the tracks made by their little gaiters in the red dust of the upper road and report them the smallest feet ever seen in this section. Billy Devins of the Blue-jay claim is thought to have the best show with the eldest, and Goldberry of the lively stable with the youngest. No. He won’t let his best horse and buggy to anybody now and takes her out riding three times a week. But they’re snappy and uncertain, and nobody can count on them for a certainty. So runs the week’s news, which he picks up with sundry drinks.