Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/691



after dinner as before, and people came hither to work rather than to enjoy themselves. Every moment not devoted to the accomplishment of the purpose that tore them from home and friends seemed wasted.

To drink alone was to demean one's self; it smacked too much of drinking for the love of it, which even in their wild times, and notwithstanding all men did it, was held disgraceful. Such a one was either an * onery cuss' or a * whiskey-bloat,' or both; and so with the high-minded and open-handed, the barkeeper must drink if there was no one else available.

Not unfrequently in the remoter and more isolated camps, from snow or flood, supplies would become low and prices advance enormously. In such cases a scarcity of food was more philosophically endured than the total absence of liquor and tobacco. After such a season of abstinence, the first train arriving would be surrounded by a crowd of thirsty souls with bottles, cups, coffee-pots, and saucepans, all eager for a supply of the precious liquid. Ten dollars was once offered for the privilege of using a straw at the buno; of a keo; of New England rum. Excess followed as a matter of course, and soon every phase of inebriety was manifest, from prattling jocundity to roaring intoxication. Patriotism would break forth in song and dance; whith thick tongues and husky throats the sons of Erin would sound the glories of the Emerald Isle, the Germans of their fatherland, the Frenchmen of sweet France; Yankees apostrophized their growing country. Englishmen challenged all the world to mortal combat, Spaniards, mounted on mule or mustang, dug their long rowels into the animal's bleeding sides, and rushed hither and thither making the hills ring with their delirious shouts. Old quarrels were revived, and the flash of steel and discharge of revolvers, as much to the danger of bystanders as to the combatants themselves, lent their peculiar charm to the occasion.

Many drank spasmodically ; hard workers attending