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At that time the camp was new. Most of what was called the valuable property was owned by an English syndicate, but there were many who had small claims scattered here and there on the mountainside, and Three-fingered Hoover and I were rightly reckoned among these others. The camp was new and rough to the degree of uncouthness, yet, upon the whole, the little population was well disposed and orderly. But along in the spring of ’81, finding that we numbered eight hundred, with electric lights, telephones, a bank, a meeting-house, a race-track, and such-like modern improvements, we of Red Hoss Mountain became possessed of the notion to have a city government; so nothing else would do but to proceed at once and solemnly to the choice of a mayor, marshal, clerk, and other municipal officers. The spirit of party politics (as it is known and as it controls things elsewhere) did not enter into the short and active canvass; there were numerous candidates for each office, all were friends, and the most popular of the lot were to win. The campaign was fervent but good-natured.

I shall venture to say that Jim Woppit would never have been elected city marshal but for the potent circumstance that several of the most influential gentlemen in the camp were in love with Jim’s sister; that was Jim’s hold on these influences, and that was why he was elected.

Yet Jim was what you ‘d call a good fellow–not that he was fair to look upon, for he was not; he was swarthy and heavy-featured and hulking; but he was a fair-speaking man, and he was always ready to help out the boys when they went broke or were elsewise in trouble. Yes, take him all in all, Jim Woppit was properly fairly popular, although, as I shall always maintain, he would never have been elected city marshal over Buckskin and Red Drake and Salty Boardman if it had n’t been (as I have intimated) for the backing he got from Hoover, Jake Dodsley, and Barber Sam. These three men last named were influences in the camp, enterprising and respected citizens, with plenty of sand in their craws and plenty of stuff in their pockets; they loved Miss Woppit, and they were in honor bound to stand by the interests of the brother of that fascinating young woman.

I was not surprised that they were smitten; she might have caught me, too, had it not been for the little woman and the three kids back in the states. As handsome and as gentle a lady was Miss Woppit as ever walked a white pine floor–so very different from White River Ann, and Red Drake’s wife, and old man Edgar’s daughter, for they were magpies who chattered continually and maliciously, hating Miss Woppit because she wisely chose to have nothing to do with them. She lived with her brother Jim on the side-hill, just off the main road, in the cabin that Smooth Ephe Hicks built before he was thrown off his broncho into the gulch. It was a pretty but lonesome place, about three-quarters of a mile from the camp, adjoining the claim which Jim Woppit worked in a lazy sort of way–Jim being fairly well fixed, having sold off a coal farm in Illinois just before he came west.

In this little cabin abode Miss Woppit during the period of her wooing, a period covering, as I now recall, six or, may be, eight months. She was so pretty, so modest, so diligent, so homekeeping, and so shy, what wonder that those lonely, heart-hungry men should fall in love with her? In all the population of the camp the number of women was fewer than two score, and of this number half were married, others were hopeless spinsters, and others were irretrievably bad, only excepting Miss Woppit, the prettiest, the tidiest, the gentlest of all. She was good, pure, and lovely in her womanliness; I shall not say that I envied–no, I respected Hoover and Dodsley and Barber Sam for being stuck on the girl; you ‘d have respected ’em, too, if you ‘d seen her and–and them. But I did take it to heart because Miss Woppit seemed disinclined to favor any suit for her fair hand–particularly because she was by no means partial to Three-fingered Hoover, as square a man as ever struck pay dirt–dear old pardner, your honest eyes will never read these lines, between which speaks my lasting love for you!