The train arrived.  Troops alighting preserved order near the pay-car; and out of the dense mob a slow stream of men flowed into the car at one end and out again at the other.

Bates, a giant digger and a bully, was the first man in the line, the first to get his little share of the fortunes in gold passing out of the car that day.

Long before half of that mob had received its pay Bates lay dead upon a sanded floor, killed in a drunken brawl.

And the Irishman Mike had received his thirty dollars.

And the big Negro had broken the head of his friend.

And the teamster had forgotten to send money home.

And his comrade had neglected to settle for the suit of clothes he was wearing.

And Bandy, for all his vows, had gone straight for bucking the tiger.

And Frank, who had gotten drunk last pay-day, had been mindful of wife and little girl far away and had done his duty.

As the spirit of the gangs changed with the coming of the gold, so did that of the day.

The wind began to blow, the dust began to fly, the sun began to burn; and the freshness and serenity of the morning passed.

Main street in Benton became black-streaked with men, white-sheeted with dust.  There was a whining whistle in the wind as it swooped down.  It complained; it threatened; it strengthened; and from the heating desert it blew in stiflingly hot.  A steady tramp, tramp, tramp rattled the loose boards as the army marched down upon Benton.  It moved slowly, the first heave of a great mass getting under way.  Stores and shops, restaurants and hotels and saloons, took toll from these first comers.  Benton swallowed up the builders as fast as they marched from the pay-train.  It had an insatiable maw.  The bands played martial airs, and soldiers who had lived through the Rebellion felt the thrill and the quick-step and the call of other days.

Toward afternoon Benton began to hurry.  The hour was approaching when crowded halls and tents must make room for fresh and unspent gangs.  The swarms of men still marched up the street.  Benton was gay and noisy and busy then.  White shirts and blue and red plaid held their brightness despite the dust.  Gaudily dressed women passed in and out of the halls.  All was excitement, movement, color, merriment, and dust and wind and heat.  The crowds moved on because they were pushed on.  Music, laughter, shuffling feet and clinking glass, a steady tramp, voices low and voices loud, the hoarse brawl of the barker—­all these varying elements merged into a roar—­a roar that started with a merry note and swelled to a nameless din.