After delivering my express matter I had leisure to walk about town, view the sights and watch the swaying crowds of gamblers, sure thing sharps and other forms of human flotsam and jetsam as they fleeced their victims, the miners.  One occasion I shall never forget.  It was the funeral of one of the prominent citizens of Oro Fino.  The aforesaid prominent citizen bore the euphonious cognomen of “Bob-up-the-creek.”  Bob, probably at his christening, was given another name answers as well as another, especially among the aristocracy of which Bob was an honored member.  Bob was a bad actor, too, especially when under the influence of liquor.  One Sunday Bob imbibed quite freely and finally “declared himself chief.”  There were none who cared to dispute with Bob his self assumed title, but he finally ran “up against” an old Frenchman who kept a pie stand.  Bob concluded to take possession of the stand, but his right to do so was disputed by the Frenchman.  To settle the dispute the Frenchman emptied the contents of a double barreled shot gun into Bob’s head.  That settled the dispute and likewise Bob.

Being a citizen of prominence, his friends and admirers determined to give Bob a respectable send off.  Accordingly a neat coffin was purchased and Bob reverently placed therein.  A procession was formed and from fifty to seventy-five of his friends followed his remains to the newly made cemetery on the hill.  All were in full dress—­black pantaloons, checked flannel shirt with white collar, and with a revolver and knife swung conveniently to the belt.  Now, no self-respecting or prudent gentleman of the class of which I am speaking, moved abroad in those days without the ever handy knife and pistol.  As the occasion was one of importance, I followed after the procession.  Arriving at the grave, the coffin was placed upon two poles laid across the vault.  The burial service was then read by one of the mourners, a faro dealer, if my memory serves me right, a solemn hymn was sung and then all that was mortal of “Bob-up-the-creek” was consigned to the grave.  Four lusty mourners then began shoveling in the dirt.  When the grave was about two-thirds filled, a repulsive looking vagabond, the town drunk, threw himself across the grave bellowing like a bull buffalo, and exclaiming “here is a poor soul gone to eternity and not one tear shed over his grave.”  Meanwhile the dirt kept falling—­it appeared to me a little faster, when the old drunk, seeing himself about to be buried alive, crawled upon his feet, shaking himself very much as a wet dog is wont to shake himself.  This action was greeted with peals of laughter and shouts from the mourners.  Such was the funeral of “Bob-up-the-creek.”  Shocked and disgusted I turned and walked down the hill to town, to be followed soon after by a laughing, jesting crowd, who dispersed to their different “places of business” to lie in wait for the unwary sucker, the miner.