In fifteen minutes' time he returned, carrying a pair of well-worn boots, which he gave to me. I put them on, and then together we went towards the nearest cabin.
Although it was high mid-summer the slush around the dwelling rose over our boots, and dropped between the leather and our stockings. We entered the building, which was a large roomy single compartment that served the purpose of bedroom, eating-room, dressing-room, and gambling saloon. Some of the inmates had sat up all night playing banker, and they were still squatting around a rough plank where silver and copper coins clanked noisily in the intervals between the game. The room, forty feet square, and ten foot high, contained fifty bed-places, which were ranged around the walls, and which rose one over the other in three tiers reaching from the ground to the ceiling. A spring oozed through the earthen floor, which was nothing but a puddle of sticky clay and water.
A dozen or more frying-pans, crammed with musty, sizzling slices of bacon, were jumbled together on the red hot-plate in the centre of the room, and here and there amid the pile of pans, little black sooty cans of brewing tea bubbled merrily. The odour of the rank tea was even stronger than that of the roasting meat.
The men were very ragged, and each of them was covered with a fine coating of good healthy clay. The muck was caked brown on the bare arms, and a man, by contracting his muscles firmly, could break the dirt clear off his skin in hard, dry scales. No person of all those on whom I looked had shaved for many months, and the hair stood out strongly from their cheeks and jowls. I myself was the only hairless faced individual there. I had not begun to shave then, and even now I only shave once a fortnight. A few of the men were still in bed, and many were just turning out of their bunks. On rising each man stood stark naked on the floor, prior to dressing for the day. None were ashamed of their nakedness: the false modesty of civilisation is unknown to the outside places. To most people the sight of the naked human body is repulsive, and they think that for gracefulness of form and symmetry of outline man's body is much inferior to that of the animals of the field. I suppose all people, women especially, are conscious of this, for nothing else can explain the desire to improve nature's handiwork which is inherent in all human beings.
Joe and I approached the gamblers and surveyed the game, looking over the shoulders of one of the players.
"Much luck?" inquired my mate.
"Not much," answered the man beside him, looking up wearily, although in his eyes the passion of the game still burned brightly.
"At it all night?"
"All night," replied the player, wearily picking up the cards which had been dealt out and throwing them away with an air of disgust.