adopted, judges selected, and the new community was busy in upheaving, sluicing, drifting, and cradling the inexhaustible bed of auriferous gravel, which has yielded under these various manipulations a greater amount of gold than any other placer on the continent. The Southern sympathizers of the Territory gave the name of Varina to the new town which had sprung up in Alder Gulch, in honor of the wife of President Jefferson Davis. Dr. Bissell, one of the miners’ judges of the gulch, was an ardent Unionist. Being called upon to draw up some papers before the new name had been generally adopted, and requested to date them at “Varina City,” he declared, with a very emphatic expletive, he would not do it, and wrote the name “Virginia City,”--by which name the place has ever since been known. The road agents were among the first to follow in the track of the miners. Prominent among them were Cyrus Skinner, Jack Gallagher, Buck Stinson, and Ned Ray,--the last three as deputies of Plummer in the sheriffalty. Ripe for the commission of any deed, however atrocious, which gave the promise of plunder, jackal-like they watched the gathering crowd and its various industries, marking each and all for early and unceasing depredation. The Hon. Washington Stapleton who had been at work in the Bannack mines from the time of their discovery, a miner named Dodge, and another man, each supposed to possess a considerable amount of gold, having determined to go to Virginia City, Dodge was privately informed by Dillingham, one of Plummer’s deputies, on the eve of their intended departure, that Buck Stinson, Hayes Lyons, and Charley Forbes had laid plans for robbing them on the way, and had requested him (Dillingham) to join them in the robbery. When the time for their going came, Dodge expressed his fear of an attack, and announced his determination to remain. His friends rallied him, until, smarting under their taunts, he revealed the information given by Dillingham. Stinson, Lyons, and Forbes heard of it, and determined to kill the informer. Stapleton left his companions, and started for Virginia City alone. At Rattlesnake he encountered Hayes Lyons, who rode up and asked him if he had heard of the robbery which Dillingham alleged had been planned against him. Stapleton replied in the negative; but when telling the story since, says that he has felt more comfortable even when sleeping in church, than when he saw that scoundrel approaching him. He told him, he says, that this was the first he had heard of it, adding, “If you want my money, I have only one hundred dollars in greenbacks. You had better take that, and let me go.” Lyons replied with an oath that the story was a lie, and that he was then on his way to kill Dillingham for putting such a story in circulation, but he feared Dillingham had heard of his intention and left the country.