“forms” into the yellow river, and scattered the types in the dusty road.  These proceedings were received in the distant and more civilized outlying towns as vague indications of progress and vitality.  I have before me a copy of the “Poverty Flat Pioneer,” for the week ending August 12, 1856, in which the editor, under the head of “County Improvements,” says:  “The new Presbyterian Church on C Street, at Sandy Bar, is completed.  It stands upon the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, which was so mysteriously burnt last month.  The temple, which now rises like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Magnolia, is virtually the free gift of H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot and donated the lumber.  Other buildings are going up in the vicinity, but the most noticeable is the ‘Sunny South Saloon,’ erected by Captain Mat.  Scott, nearly opposite the church.  Captain Scott has spared no expense in the furnishing of this saloon, which promises to be one of the most agreeable places of resort in old Tuolumne.  He has recently imported two new, first-class billiard-tables, with cork cushions.  Our old friend, ’Mountain Jimmy,’ will dispense liquors at the bar.  We refer our readers to the advertisement in another column.  Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do better than give ‘Jimmy’ a call.”  Among the local items occurred the following:  “H.  J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of $100 for the detection of the parties who hauled away the steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street, Sandy Bar, during divine service on Sabbath evening last.  Captain Scott adds another hundred for the capture of the miscreants who broke the magnificent plate-glass windows of the new saloon on the following evening.  There is some talk of reorganizing the old Vigilance Committee at Sandy Bar.”

When, for many months of cloudless weather, the hard, unwinking sun of Sandy Bar had regularly gone down on the unpacified wrath of these men, there was some talk of mediation.  In particular, the pastor of the church to which I have just referred—­a sincere, fearless, but perhaps not fully enlightened man—­seized gladly upon the occasion of York’s liberality to attempt to reunite the former partners.  He preached an earnest sermon on the abstract sinfulness of discord and rancor.  But the excellent sermons of the Rev. Mr. Daws were directed to an ideal congregation that did not exist at Sandy Bar,—­a congregation of beings of unmixed vices and virtues, of single impulses, and perfectly logical motives, of preternatural simplicity, of childlike faith, and grown-up responsibilities.  As, unfortunately, the people who actually attended Mr. Daws’s church were mainly very human, somewhat artful, more self-excusing than self-accusing, rather good-natured, and decidedly weak, they quietly shed that portion of the sermon which referred to themselves, and, accepting York and Scott—­who were both in defiant attendance—­as curious examples of those ideal beings above referred to, felt a certain