Beth Norvell

It was thus that the "Heart of the World" players came to fulfil their

engagement at San Juan upon a Saturday night. This was the liveliest

camp in all that mountain region, a frantic, feverish, mushroom city of

tents and shacks, sprawling frame business blocks, and a few ugly brick

abominations, perched above the golden rocks of the Vila Valley,

bounded on one side by the towering cliffs, on the other by the

pitiless desert. In those days San Juan recognized no material

distinction between midnight and noon-day. All was glitter, glow,

life, excitement along the streets; the gloomy overhanging mountains

were pouring untold wealth into her lap, while vice and crime,

ostentation and lawlessness, held high carnival along the crowded,

straggling byways. The exultant residents existed to-day in utter

carelessness of the morrow, their one dominant thought gold, their sole

acknowledged purpose those carnal pleasures to be purchased with it.

Everything was primitive, the animal yet in full control, the drinking,

laughing, fighting animal, filled with passion and blood-lust,

worshipping bodily strength, and governed by the ideals of a frontier

society wherein the real law hung dangling at the hip. Saloons,

gambling halls, dance halls, and brothels flaunted themselves

shamelessly upon every hand; the streets exhibited one continual riot,

while all higher life was seemingly rendered inactive by inordinate

grasping after wealth, and reckless squandering of it on appetite and

vice; over all, as if blazoned across the blue sky, appeared the

ever-recurring motto of careless humanity, "Eat, drink, and be merry,

for to-morrow ye die." Hardly a week before a short railroad spur had

been constructed up the narrow, rock-guarded valley from Bolton

Junction, eighteen miles to the northward, and over those uneven rails

the "Heart of the World" troupe of adventurous strollers arrived at San

Juan, to find lodgment in that ramshackle pile of boards known locally

as the "Occidental Hotel."

The San Juan Opera House, better known as the Gayety, was in truth

merely an adjunct to the Poodle-Dog Saloon, the side-doors from the

main floor opening directly into the inviting bar-room, while those in

the gallery afforded an equally easy egress into the spacious gambling

apartments directly above. It was a monstrous ugly building,

constructed entirely of wood most hastily prepared; the stage was

utilized both night and day for continuous variety entertainments of

the kind naturally demanded by the motley gathering. These, however,

were occasionally suspended to make room for some adventurous

travelling company to appear in the legitimate drama, but at the close

of every evening performance the main floor was promptly cleared, the

rows of chairs pushed hastily back from the centre, and the space thus

vacated utilized for a general dance, which invariably continued until

dawn.