"Speaking of babies," said Miller nonchalantly, "do you know that about the most touching scene I ever witnessed was over a baby? It was in Downieville. California, way back in '51 or '2. You know at that time babies were not very numerous in the Sierras. There were plenty of men there who had not seen a good woman, or a baby, for two years or more. You may not believe it, but you shut the presence of women and children all out of men's lives, for months at a time, and they contract a disease, which I call 'heart hunger,' and because of that I suspect that more whiskey has been drunk in this country, and more killings have grown out of trifling quarrels, than through all other causes combined. Without the eyes of women, good women, that he respects, upon a man, in a little while the wild beast, which is latent in all men's hearts, begins to assert itself. Because of this, men who were born to be good and true, have, to kill the unrest within their souls, taken to drink; the drink has led naturally up to a quarrel; they have got away with their first fight; the fools around them have praised them for their 'sand'; there has been no look of sorrow and reproach in any honest woman's eyes to bring them back to their senses; and after such a beginning, look for them in a year, and, in nine cases out of ten, you will find that they are lost men. "But I commenced to tell you about the Downieville baby. It had been decided that we would have a Fourth of July celebration. There was no trouble about getting it up. We had a hundred men in camp, either one of whom could make as pretty a speech as you ever heard; everybody had plenty of money, and there was no trouble about fixing things to have a lively time. True, there was no chance for a triumphal car, with a Goddess of Liberty, and a young lady to represent each State. There was a good reason for it. There were not thirty young ladies within three hundred miles of us. "But we had a big live eagle to represent Sovereignty, and a grizzly bear as a symbol of Power, which we hauled in the procession; we had some mounted men, including some Mexican packers on mule back; a vast variety of flags, and many citizens on foot in the procession. Of course we had a marshal and his staff, a president of the day, an orator, poet, reader and chaplain, and last, but not least, a brass band of a few months' training. There were flags enough for a grand army, and every anvil in town was kept red hot firing salutes.