The shifting population which inhabited the new territories invites and at the same time defies description. It was made up chiefly of young men. Respectable women were not unknown, but were so few in number as to have little measurable influence upon social life. In many towns they were in the minority, even among their sex, since the easily won wealth of the camps attracted dissolute women who cannot be numbered but who must be imagined. The social tone of the various camps was determined by the preponderance of men, the absence of regular labor, and the speculative fever which was the justification of their existence. The political tone was determined by the nature of the population, the character of the industry, and the remoteness from a seat of government. Combined, these factors produced a type of life the like of which America had never known, and whose picturesque qualities have blinded the thoughtless into believing that it was romantic. It was at best a hard bitter struggle with the dark places only accentuated by the tinsel of gambling and adventure. A single street meandering along a valley, with one-story huts flanking it in irregular rows, was the typical mining camp. The saloon and the general store, sometimes combined, were its representative institutions. Deep ruts along the street bore witness to the heavy wheels of the freighters, while horses loosely tied to all available posts at once revealed the regular means of locomotion, and by the careless way they were left about showed that this sort of property was not likely to be stolen. The mining population centring here lived a life of contrasts. The desolation and loneliness of prospecting and working claims alternated with the excitement of coming to town. Few decent beings habitually lived in the towns. The resident population expected to live off the miners, either in way of trade, or worse. The bar, the gambling-house, the dance-hall have been made too common in description to need further account. In the reaction against loneliness, the extremes of drunkenness, debauchery, and murder were only too frequent in these places of amusement.