Those of my readers who resided in Bannack at the time doubtless remember the “Miners’ Ten Commandments,” written copies of which were circulated freely throughout the camp. I recall two of them. If the first one here given serves to illustrate the prevailing customs of a mining camp, the other contains a warning which the dishonest and covetous did not fail to heed. “FOURTH COMMANDMENT. Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home on the Sabbath day, lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with what thou doest. Six days thou mayst dig or pick all that thy body can stand under; but the other day is Sunday, when thou shalt wash all thy soiled shirts, darn all thy stockings, tap all thy boots, mend all thy clothing, chop all thy whole week’s firewood, make up and bake thy bread, and boil thy pork and thy beans, that thou wait not when thou returnest from thy long tour, weary. For in six days’ labor only, thou canst not wear out thy body in two whole years; but if thou workest hard on Sunday also, thou canst do it in six months, and thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy male friend, and thy female friend, thy morals, and thy conscience, be none the better for it, but reproach thee shouldst thou ever return with thy worn-out body to thy mother’s fireside, and thou strive to justify thyself, because the trader and the merchant, the carpenter and the blacksmith, the tailors and the Jews, defy God and civilization, by keeping not the Sabbath day, and wish not for a day of rest such as memory and home and youth made hallowed. “NINTH COMMANDMENT. Thou shalt not tell any false tales about ‘good diggings in the mountains’ to thy neighbor, that thou mayst benefit thy friend who hath mules and provisions and blankets and mining tools he cannot sell; lest in deceiving thy neighbor, when he returneth through the snow with naught save his rifle, he presenteth thee with the contents thereof, and like a dog thou shalt fall down and die.” CHAPTER XXI BATTLE OF BEAR RIVER