That the camps did not destroy themselves in their own frenzy is a tribute to the solid qualities which underlay the recklessness and shiftlessness of much of the population. In most of the camps there came a time when decency finally asserted itself in the only possible way to repress lawlessness. The rapidity with which these camps had drawn their hundreds and their thousands into the fastnesses of the territories carried them beyond the limits of ordinary law and regular institutions. Law and the politician followed fast enough, but there was generally an interval after the discovery during which such peace prevailed as the community itself demanded. In absence of sheriff and constable, and jail in which to incarcerate offenders, the vigilance committee was the only protection of the new camp. Such summary justice as these committees commonly executed is evidence of innate tendency toward law and order, not of their defiance. The typical camp passed through a period of peaceful exploitation at the start, then came an era of invasion by hordes of miners and disreputable hangers-on, with accompanying violence and crime. Following this, the vigilance committee, in its stern repression of a few of the crudest sins, marks the beginning of a reign of law. The mining camps of the early sixties familiarized the United States with the whole area of the nation, and dispelled most of the remaining tradition of desert which hung over the mountain West. They attracted a large floating population, they secured the completion of the political map through the erection of new territories, and they emphasized loudly the need for national transportation on a larger scale than the trail and the stage coach could permit. But they did not directly secure the presence of permanent population in the new territories. Arizona and Nevada lost most of their inhabitants as soon as the first flush of discovery was over. Montana, Idaho, and Colorado declined rapidly to a fraction of their largest size. None of them was successful in securing a large permanent population until agriculture had gained firm foothold. Many indeed who came to mine remained to plough, but the permanent populating of the Far West was the work of railways and irrigation two decades later. Yet the mining camps had served their purpose in revealing the nature of the whole of the national domain. CHAPTER XI THE OVERLAND MAIL