After a hearty breakfast and a good cigar, Gunderson squared himself for the story. He shut his eyes for a few minutes, as if to recall something, and then, speaking as if to himself, he said:
"Well, sir, there wasn't a simmer anywhere, dampers all shut; you wouldn't'a suspected they was up to the popping point, but the minute they got their orders, and the con. put up his hand, so, up went—"
"Say," I interrupted, "I thought I was to have the story. I believe you told me about the wedding, last night. The young couple started out well."
"Oh, yes, old man, I forgot, the story; well, get on the next pit here," motioning to a seat next to him, "and I'll give you the history of an old, hook-motion, name of Oscar Gunderson, and a trim, Class "G" made of solid silver, from pilot to draft-gear.
"You think I'm a Swede; well, I ain't, I don't know what I am, but I guess I come nearer to being a Chinaman than anything else. My father was a sea-captain, and my mother found me on the China sea—but they were both Swedes just the same. I had two sisters older than myself, and in order to better our chances, father moved to New York when I was less than five years old.
"He soon secured work as captain on a steamer in the Cuban trade, and died at sea, when I was ten.
"I had a bent for machinery, and tried the old machine-shops of the Central road, but soon found myself firing.
"I went to California, shortly after the war, on account of a woman—mostly my fault.
"Well, after running around there for some years, I struck a job on the Virginia & Truckee, in '73.
"Virginia City and Carson and all the Nevada towns were doing a fall-rush business, turning every wheel they had, with three crews to a mill. Why, if you'd go down street in any one of them towns at night, and see the crowds around the gamblers and molls, you'd think hell was a-coming forty-mile an hour, and that it wan't more than a car-length away.