On a knoll, not far from a running stream, was pitched a rough canvas tent. It was of the "wall" sort, and was pegged to the ground with strong fastenings. Inside were a hammock, a coarse table, two or three stools, and some boxes and barrels. There were likewise a gridiron, a "spider," an iron kettle, some tin dishes and cups, and a pair of candlesticks of the same material. Outside there was a trench dug, by way of drainage, so that the floor within was kept hard and dry; but the floor was of earth merely. There was not a flower, or a picture, or the least attempt at ornament whatever within the tent. Hence the interior looked bare, sordid, and forbidding. And yet, grim as it was, the tent had been the solitary abode of its occupant for many months. In the midst of gold, in quantity outstripping the wildest dreams of his boyhood, this man had chosen to be a miser. In the midst of a society whose reckless joviality and wild profusion were perhaps without precedent, he had chosen to be a recluse. For this self indulgence he had to pay a price. But he consoled himself, remembering that a price has to be paid for everything. Chester Harding came to Bullion Flat about a year before. He had no friends and no money. The former he could do without, he thought, but the latter was indispensable. So he got work on the Flat, turning a spade and plying a rocker for five dollars a day. Such work was then better paid as a rule, but Harding, though diligent and strong, was not used to toil, and hence was awkward and comparatively inefficient. He improved with practice and strove doggedly on, never losing a day, saving every penny, spending nothing for drink or good fellowship, courting no man's smile, and indifferent to all men's frowns. He was savagely bent on achieving independence, and in no long time, after a fashion, he got it. Independence, in this sense, consisted in a share of a paying claim, and in the whole of a "wall" tent. In the former he dug and washed, morosely enough, with five or six partners; but he made up for this enforced and distasteful social attrition by living in his tent alone.