Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Men Of Dreams The next day when Bradshaw came down the road from one of the mine employment offices he was frowning, but when he reached the place where he had rebuked the impudence of Wilkins and Snitch a far better mood took possession of him. And forthwith he let his imagination lead him into a pleasant reverie—that had to do with a girl, and matters of great personal success. For verily, he was in a Bagdad, and in Bagdad much of magic might transpire. Arrived at his boarding house, he found John Walton, a tall, lithe man with the sobered look of one who had seen much, experienced trying vicissitudes and withal had maintained his real manhood, and Paddy Skiff, a grizzled old miner, occupying the bench that stood against the wall beside the wide open door. Paddy, shrewd, possessed of limitless Celtic wit and with mining experience dating from Virginia City, Nevada, boom times, turned his twinkling eyes on Dan. "Sit down Lad", he invited hospitably, and as Bradshaw complied he went on. "Wat do ye think of Butte by this time? You'll find it great. One minut ye look at Butte an' it sure do look rough,—maybe tough—an' the nex' minut it looks bee-yu-ti-ful to ye. Ye never kin quite get it. Ye get me? An' people work an' play an' do doggone near everything on the dynamite plan." Paddy removed his cap and pushed the fingers of a thick, strong hand through his grayed locks, still remarkably wavy and boyish for all his years. "An' talk of life! Now ye take some mucker that'll come up out of the Benton mine, where I'm tendin' station, and maybe he'll look like he's been dragged through mist an' mud. He washes up, changes his togs, puts on a new tie an' lid an' goes to a show lookin' jus' as importan' an' tony as the banker settin' next to him. Maybe nex' yea...