“Too much cussed heavenly twang,” observed one, disapprovingly, as one letter largely composed of Scriptural extracts was read.

“Why the deuce didn’t he shoot?” indignantly demanded another, as a tale of escape from heathen pursuers was read.

“Shot up wimmen in a derned dark room!  Well, I’ll be durned!” soliloquized a yellow-haired Missourian, as Thompson read an account of a Zenana.  “Reckon they’d set an infernal sight higher by wimmen if they wuz in the diggins’ six months—­hey, fellers?”

“You bet!” emphatically responded a majority of those present.

Before the boys became very restive, Thompson finished the pamphlet, including a few lines on the cover, which stated that the society was greatly in need of funds, and that contributions might be sent to the society’s financial agent in Boston.  Thompson gracefully concluded his service by passing the hat, with the following net result:  Two revolvers, one double-barreled pistol, three knives, one watch, two rings (both home-made, valuable and fearfully ugly), a pocket-inkstand, a silver tobacco-box, and forty or fifty ounces of dust and nuggets.  Boston Bill, who was notoriously absent-minded, dropped in a pocket-comb, but, on being sternly called to order by old Thompson, cursed himself most fluently, and redeemed his disgraceful contribution with a gold double-eagle.  “The Webfoot,” who was the most unlucky man in camp, had been so wrought upon by the tale of one missionary who had lost his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the shoulders, to its original owner.  The remaining non-legal tenders were then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with a grim note from Pentecost, to the society’s treasurer at Boston.  As the society was controlled by a denomination which does not understand how good can come out of evil, no detail of this contribution ever appeared in print.  But a few months thereafter there did appear at Hanney’s a thin-chested, large-headed youth, with a heavily loaded mule, who announced himself as duly accredited by the aforementioned society to preach the Gospel among the miners.  The boys received him cordially, and Pentecost offered him the nightly hospitality of curling up to sleep in front of the bar-room fireplace.  His mule’s load proved to consist largely of tracts, which he vigorously distributed, and which the boys used to wrap up dust in.  He nearly starved while trying to learn to cook his own food, so some of the boys took him in and fed him.  He tried to persuade the boys to stop drinking, and they good-naturedly laughed; but when he attempted to break up the “little game” which was the only amusement of the camp—­the only steady amusement, for fights were short and irregular—­the camp rose in its wrath, and the young man hastily rose and went for his mule.