A moment later and the room was filled with men who fell on their knees.
On every face, save one, there was an expression of overwhelming grief
and despair; but on that one, ashen grey as it was with the agony of
approaching death, there was a look of contentment as he made a sign to
the padre that he was now ready for him to administer the last rites of
his church.




III.


The Polka Saloon!

How the name stirs the blood and rouses the imagination!

No need to be a Forty-Niner to picture it all as if there that night:
the great high and square room lighted by candles and the warm, yellow
light of kerosene lamps; the fireplace with its huge logs blazing and
roaring; the faro tables with the little rings of miners around them;
and the long, pine bar behind which a typical barkeeper of the period
was busily engaged in passing the bottle to the men clamorous for whisky
in which to drink the health of the Girl.

And the spirit of the place! When and where was there ever such a fine
fellowship--transforming as it unquestionably did an ordinary saloon
into a veritable haven of good cheer for miners weary after a long and
often discouraging day in the gulches?