In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and crackling timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp.  When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy, nearest the river-bank, was gone.  Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, The Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.  They were returning with sad hearts when a shout from the bank recalled them.

It was a relief-boat from down the river.  They had picked up, they said, a man and an infant, nearly exhausted, about two miles below.  Did anybody know them, and did they belong here?

It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms.  As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless.  “He is dead,” said one.  Kentuck opened his eyes.  “Dead?” he repeated feebly.  “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.”  A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck.  “Dying!” he repeated; “he’s a-taking me with him.  Tell the boys I’ve got The Luck with me now;” and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.

THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT

As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night.  Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances.  There was a Sabbath lull in the air which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.

Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications.  Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question.  “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected; “likely it’s me.”  He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.

In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.”  It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen.  It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it.  A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons.  This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters.  I regret to say that some of these were ladies.  It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.