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CHAPTER VII.

SNOW! NOTHING BUT SNOW.

UCH fearful scenes were the chief diversions of the camp. True, the miners did not, as a rule, take part in these bloody carnivals, but were rather the spectators in the circus. The men at The Forks, gamblers and the like, were the gladiators.

Of course, we had some few papers, very old ones, and there were some few novels on the creek; but there was no place of amusement, no neighbours with entertaining families, nothing but the monotony of camp and cabin-life of the most ungracious kind.

As for ourselves, I know the Prince had often hard work to keep his commissary department in tack. The butchers no longer competed for his patronage, and but for fear of his influence to their disadvantage, backed by something of real heart, as these mountain butchers mostly possess to an un common degree for men in their calling, they would have left him long ago.