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 back yard; donkeys grazed there, apparently fattening upon a rich diet of tin cans and shavings. Over yonder was a charred heap which had once been a building of some pretension, as was evident from the rude stone foundation which the blackened timbers leaned against. So Lame Gulch had its history, its traditions, its ruin. The charred timbers already looked older than the everlasting hills that towered on every hand, wrapped in the garment of eternal youth.

"What a lot of houses there are here," Mr. Fetherbee remarked to his next neighbor, a seamy old reprobate with an evil eye.

"Hm!" was the reply, the articulate profanity of which was lost in a cloud of the thickest, vilest tobacco smoke. "Ever seen a mining-camp when the stuff's given out?"

"No; what does it look like?"

"Like a heap of bloomin' peanut-shells chucked in a corner."

At the Mountain Lion were Allery Jones, Harry de Luce, Dick Dayton "the mascot," and half a dozen other Springtown men, and they pounced upon the new-comer with every flattering indication of delight.

Mr. Fetherbee had been but six months a resident of Springtown, but it had hardly taken