The Press., 1891-05-21

s /nMI # weeds ana herDage
 IVY growing over it's site
 /M and hiding all of mans
 S WB work inside of ten years. Yet to one witnessing these changes it seemed the life of a whole generation Of such settlements Red Mountain Bar was one. Red Mountain lay three miles above Swett's Bar, 'sup river" Ilived ''off and on'' at the "Bar" in it's dying days. I saw it decay gently and peacefully. I saw the grass, trees and herbage gradually creep in and re- sume their sway all over its site as they had done ere mans interruption.
 lived there when the few ''boys" left used daily, after the close of an un- successful river season, to sit in a row on log by the rivers edge, and there, surveying their broken dam, would chant curses on their luck: The Bar store was then still in ex- istence. Thompson was it's proprietor. The stock on hand had dwindled down to whisky. The bar and one filled bot tie alone survived. On rainy nights, when the few miners left would gather about the stove, Thompson would take
  "What can't be cured must be en- dured," or ''The king into his garden came; the spices smelt about the same"- a quotation of unknown authorship. Of neighbors, living in their cabins strung along the banks for half mile above the store, there was Keen Fam, an aged mercantile and mining Chinaman, with colony about him of lesser and facially indistinguishable countrymen of varying numbers. Second, "Old Harry" an aged negro, skilled per former on the bugle and singer who offered at times to favor us with what he termed a ''little ditto" He was the Ethiopia king of knot of Kanakas gathered about him. Third, Bloody Bill," so called from his frequent use of the sanguinary adjective, and, as may be guessed, an Englishman. Fourth, an old Scotchman, one of the Bars oldest inhabitants; who would come to the store with the little bit of gold dust, gathered after hard days 'crevicing,' complaining that gold was getting as scarce as ''the grace of God in the Heelands of Scotland" Fifth, Mo Farlane, 8 white bearded old fellow, an other pioneer, who after 8 yearly venture into some strange and distant locality to change his luck" was certain event ually to drift back again to the Bar, which he regarded as home. Down the river, nestled high up in steep and picturesque gulch, stood the buckeye embowered cabin of old Jonathan Brown, the ditch tender, great reader of weekly ''story papers" who lived like boy in the literature of the Western Frontier Penny Awful, and who, com ing to the store and perching himself on the counter, would sometimes break out in remarks about how ''Them thar h. dians got the better of 'em at last," to the astonishment of the 'boys," who imagined at first that he referred to In- dians in the locality, suggesting possi- biities of 8 repetition of the great Oak Flat uprising of 1850.
 At the ''top of the hill" a mile and 8 half away, stood the Yankee ranch, " kept by a bustling, uneasy and rather uncomfortable man from Massachusetts, aided by his good natured, easy going son-in-law. One rainy winters day the boys congregated about Thompson's n's store became seized with whi1n for the manufacture of little pasteboard men turning grindstones, which, fastened to the stove, were impelled to action by the ascending current of hot air. So they smoked their pipes and wrought all day until the area of stovepipe became thickly covered with little pasteboard men busily turning pasteboard grind stones. Then George M. o., the son. in-law of the Yankee ranch, came down the hill to borrow an ax.
 George was of that temperament and inclination to be of all things charmed with warm stove on 8 cold, rainy day, a knot of good fellows about it, fre- quent pipe of tobacco, maybe an occa- sional punch and the pleasing manufact- ure of hot air driven little pasteboard men turning pasteboard grindstones. He forgot his ax-sat down and began with the rest the manufacture of pasteboard men and grindstones. And he kept on till late hour of the night, and staid at the Bar all night and all the next day and that next night, until the stovepipe was covered to it's very top with little men, all working away for dear life | turning grindstones; and on the second day of his stay the exasperated father-in- law suddenly appeared and delivered himself in impatient invective with re- gard to such conduct on the part of a son-in-law sent forty-eight hours pre- | viously to borrow an ax. Such was the circle oft gathered on the long. rainy winters eve about the Thompson store
 
 quently dropped in. He stood respect fully, as 8 heather should in such a l Christian assemblage, on it's outer edge, or humbly appropriated some unoccupied keg, and for the rest-grinned. From his little piggy eyes to his double chin heen's face was permanently settled grin. &Et#
 Keen Fam had learned about twenty words of English and would learn no more. In his estimation these twenty words, variously used, after sort of grammatical kaleidoscopic fashion, seemed adequate to convey everything required. One of his presumed English expressions long puzzled the boys. Ask. ing the price of articles at the store he would say, ''Too muchee pollyfoot." At last the riddle was correctly guessed. He meant, "Too much profit"
 For protection Keen Fam built his house opposite the store. The Mexi- cans were then attacking and robbing isolated bands of Chinamen. At one Bar a few miles below, then deserted by the whites, the Chinese had inclosed their camp with hlgh stockade of logs. Yet one night they were attacked. The Mexicans besieged their fortress for hours, peppering them from the hill side with reyolvers, and at last they