Of what Nature could give there was much at the Bar to make pleasant man’s stay on earth, save a great deal of cash. We enjoyed a mild climate--no long, hard winters to provide against; a soil that would raise almost any vegetable, a necessity or luxury, with very little labor; grapes or figs, apples or potatoes; land to be had for the asking; water for irrigation accessible on every hand; plenty of pasture room; no crowding. A quarter of a section of such soil and climate, within forty miles of New York City, would be worth millions. Contrast such a land with the bleak hills about Boston, where half the year is spent in a struggle to provide for the other half. Yet we were all anxious to get away. Our heaven was not at Red Mountain. Fortunes could not be digged there. We spent time and strength in a scramble for a few ounces of yellow metal, while in the spring time the vales and hillsides covered with flowers argued in vain that they had the greatest rewards for our picks and shovels. But none listened. We grovelled in the mud and stones of the oft-worked bank. Yearly it responded less and less to our labors. One by one the “old-timers” left. The boarding-house of Dutch Bill at the farther end of the Bar long stood empty, and the meek-eyed and subtle Chinaman stole from its sides board after board; the sides skinned off, they took joist after joist from the framework. None ever saw them so doing. Thus silently and mysteriously, like a melting snowbank, the great, ramshackle boarding house disappeared, until naught was left save the chimney. And that also vanished brick by brick. All of which material entered into the composition and construction of that irregularly built, smoke-tanned Conglomerate of Chinese huts clustered near the Keen Fann castle.