The night was alive with the jubilant and raucous gaiety of a young mining camp. Pianos jingled and fiddles whined dance music to the accompaniment of shuffling feet. The caller’s sing-song lifted above the drone of voices.
“Alemane left. Right hand to yore pardner an’ grand right an’ left. Swing yore pardners an’ promenade you know where.”
This was punctuated by loud and joyous whoops from a dancer who had been imbibing not wisely but too well. Laughter, the rattle of chips, the clink of glasses, the hum of inaudible words, all contributed to the medley of sound rising into the starlit night.
McClintock weaved in and out, eyes and ears open to get a line on the town. It was a live camp. So much was apparent at a glance. But how much of this life was due to the money that had been brought here, how much of it to the ore which had been taken out of the Piodie mines. He met acquaintances, men he had known at Aurora and Virginia City. These introduced him to others. From them he heard fabulous stories of suddenly acquired wealth. Mike Holloway had bumped into a regular “glory hole” to-day that would make him a millionaire. The Standard Union was shipping ore assaying so much a ton that the amount had to be whispered. Compared to this town, Aurora, Dayton, Gold Hill, and Eureka were built on insignificant lodes. Hugh detected in much of this a note of exaggeration, but he knew that at bottom there was a large sediment of truth.
He went out again from the saloon where he had been gathering information and joined the floating population outside. In sex it was largely masculine. The feminine percentage was rouged and gaudily dressed.
Without any plan he drifted down Turkey Creek Avenue enjoying the raw, turbulent youth of the place. Two men were standing in the shadow of an unlighted building as he passed. McClintock did not see them. One of the men pressed the other’s arm with his hand to give a warning.
“That’s Hugh McClintock,” he whispered.
The second—a huge slouching figure with unkempt hair and beard—gave from his throat a guttural snarl. Simultaneously his hand slipped back toward his hip.
“Not right here, Dutch,” the smaller man murmured. “If you want him get him from the alley as he’s comin’ back. You can do that an’ make yore getaway back to Monument Street.”
Hugh wandered to the end of the street, unaware of the lumbering figure that followed warily on the other side of the road. The street came to an end at a sheer hill rise. Here the young man stood for several minutes enjoying the quiet of the black night. Faintly the noise of Piodie’s exuberance drifted on the light breeze. At this distance it was subdued to a harmony not unpleasant to the ear.