Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/254

246 pulp, and the mass is then drawn out, little by little, at the neck.

Walking on down the road in advance, as the coach was ascending a hill, I saw an officer riding toward me, and was so startled by a resemblance to an American friend whom I left in White Pine Mining District, Nevada, that I accosted him at once. To my great relief and surprise, as well, I found that he could not speak a word of English. There was a slightly unpleasant episode recalled to my mind by that resemblance. When the rush, in mid-winter, into the airy and inclement mountain region of White-Pine, was at its height, a party had gathered one cold, stormy night in our cabin on the summit of Treasure Mountain, and was whiling away the hours—in the absence of theaters, churches, lecture-rooms, and choice female society,—imbibing hot fluids, and filling in the odd minutes at the elevating and ennobling occupation of playing drawpoker. (I would here observe that draw-poker is played with five cards, dealt, one at a time, all around— not two first and three next, as in euchre. I make this explanation as a matter of necessity, the second and third propositions having been advanced in my hearing not long since, by no less an authority, than an United States Minister, who, in spite of his professed knowledge of the game, has been known to lay down two large pairs, when his opponent, who only held ace high, raised him with six hundred dollars already on the board. I make this explanation in the interest of the heirs of Hoyle—not that I care anything about it myself.)

Among the party were two of the tallest men in the camp—Messrs. Downton and Gerry—who had been introduced to each other for the first time that evening.