Every person in Deadwood can tell you where the “Met” is, as it is general head-quarters.

We mount the mud-splashed steps and disappear behind the screen that stands in front of the door.  Then the merry clink of glasses, snatches of ribald song, and loud curses from the polluted lips of some wretch who has lost heavily at the gaming-table, reach our hearing, while our gaze wanders over as motley a crowd as it has ever been our fortune to behold.

Men from the States—­lawyers, doctors, speculators, adventurers, pilgrims, and dead-beats; men from the western side of the Missouri; grisly miners from Colorado; hunters and trappers from Idaho and Wyoming; card sharps from Denver and Fr’isco; pickpockets from St. Joe and bummers from Omaha—­all are here, each one a part of a strange and on the whole a very undesirable community.

Although the dance has been suspended, that does not necessitate the discharge of the brazen-faced girls, and they may yet be seen here with the rest mingling freely among the crowd.

Seated at a table in a somewhat retired corner, were two persons engaged at cards.  One was a beardless youth attired in buck-skin, and armed with knife and pistols; the other a big, burly tough from the upper chain—­grisly, bloated and repulsive.  He, too, was nothing short of a walking arsenal, and it was plain to see that he was a desperate character.

The game was poker.  The youth had won three straight games and now laid down the cards that ended the fourth in his favor.

“You’re flaxed ag’in, pardner!” he said, with a light laugh, as he raked in the stakes.  “This takes your all, eh?”

“Every darned bit!” said the “Cattymount”—­for it was he—­with an oath.  “You’ve peeled me to ther hide, an’ no mistake.  Salivated me’ way out o’ time, sure’s thar ar’ modesty in a bar-girl’s tongue!”

The youth laughed.  “You are not in luck to-night.  Maybe your luck will return, if you keep on.  Haven’t you another V?”

“Nary another!”

“Where’s your pard, that got salted the other night?”

“Who—­Chet Diamond?  Wal, hee’s around heer, sum’ars, but I can’t borry none off o’ him.  No; I’ve gotter quit straight off.”

“I’ll lend you ten to begin on,” said the youth, and he laid an X in the ruffian’s hands.  “There, now, go ahead with your funeral.  It’s your deal.”

The cards were dealt, and the game played, resulting in the favor of the “Cattymount.”  Another and another was played, and the tough won every time.  Still the youth kept on, a quiet smile resting on his pleasant features, a twinkle in his coal-black eye.  The youth, dear reader, you have met before.

He is not he, but instead—­Calamity Jane.  On goes the game, the burly “tough” winning all the time, his pile of tens steadily increasing in hight.

“Talk about Joner an’ the ark, an’ Noar an’ ther whale!” he cries, slapping another X onto the pile with great enthusiasm; “I hed a grate, grate muther-in-law w’at played keerds wi’ Noar inside o’ thet eyedentical whale’s stummick—­played poker wi’ w’alebones fer pokers.  They were afterward landed at Plymouth rock, or sum uther big rock, an’ fit together, side by side, in the rebellyuns.”