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sin weighed heavily upon him-Granny was not slow in realizing what had taken place; but though he was quick to realize that the jam was missing, he was not quick enough to apprehend the culprits, who had evidently realized the axiom that second thief is best owner, but who had already taken the precaution to place the jam where no one else could molest it.Camp Maples was not unlike other mining camps. Because the occupants of the camp were supposed to do a little surveying, it did not hinder them from adhering to the tradition of the past, which required that no mining camp should have a street in it without at least three curves.Main street in Camp Maples, therefore, had three curves, two tent stakes on which to trip people, and half a dozen maple stumps in its length; not to mention one "snorting post," at that time a new, but now a time-honored institution; nor three wash-stands, two benches and three back yards fronting on that thoroughfare. No mining camp, however, ever had such a series of wonderful institutions fronting on a single street.Eureka, with its seven saloons en the same street; Tonopah, with fifteen; Goldfield, with eighteen; and a dozen other camps with any old number of saloons gave way to the array of structures which lined the main but not the only thoroughfare of Camp Maples. And the structures on Main street were not saloons; they were not even gambling joints, but rather simply canvas tents. One of these tents was just a "Correspondence College," another nothing more than a "Zoo," another just a "Bakery," another the home of three doctors, another, resembling only in name a saloon, was the "Tap," and so down the principal thoroughfare of Camp Maples a stranger might wander and "rubber" and wonder.Professor A. G. Andrews, better known as the Colonel, with his pipe and tobacco box, occupied the tent at the head of this street; that is, he occupied that tent when no one was there borrowing tobacco or asking fool questions about surveying 2. Out of respect for the Colonel, his tent was given no specific name, but it received the unique distinction of standing at the head of Main street |
