flags, filed along C street and was soon in danger of blockade by a huzzaing multitude of citizens.  In the first carriage sat Gridley, with the flour sack in prominent view, the latter splendid with bright paint and gilt lettering; also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder.  The other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors and reporters, and other people of imposing consequence.  The crowd pressed to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale to begin there, but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably surprised; for the cavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased to be of importance, and took its way over the “divide,” toward the small town of Gold Hill.  Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and Dayton, and those communities were at fever heat and rife for the conflict.  It was a very hot day, and wonderfully dusty.  At the end of a short half hour we descended into Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, and enveloped in imposing clouds of dust.  The whole population—­men, women and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in the main street, all the flags in town were at the mast head, and the blare of the bands was drowned in cheers.  Gridley stood up and asked who would make the first bid for the National Sanitary Flour Sack.  Gen. W. said: 

“The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand dollars, coin!”

A tempest of applause followed.  A telegram carried the news to Virginia, and fifteen minutes afterward that city’s population was massed in the streets devouring the tidings—­for it was part of the programme that the bulletin boards should do a good work that day.  Every few minutes a new dispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew.  Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to bring back the flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign.  At the end of an hour Gold Hill’s small population had paid a figure for the flour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand total was displayed upon the bulletin boards.  Then the Gridley cavalcade moved on, a giant refreshed with new lager beer and plenty of it—­for the people brought it to the carriages without waiting to measure it—­and within three hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and Dayton by storm and was on its way back covered with glory.  Every move had been telegraphed and bulletined, and as the procession entered Virginia and filed down C street at half past eight in the evening the town was abroad in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags flying, bands playing, cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city ready to surrender at discretion.  The auction began, every bid was greeted with bursts of applause, and at the end of two hours and a half a population of fifteen thousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum equal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks!  It was