wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude "clearing," and
beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There
was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's
cabin and the newly-transported saloon from the flat--no architectural
illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed
to be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied
the whole of Kearney's cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary
articles for housekeeping, a "bunk" or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to
leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as
bedroom and boudoir.
There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude
utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the
two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor
Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young
men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments
before decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until
they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that
they were gone.
The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without
a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had
been the counter or "bar" of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold,
now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as
separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that
hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a
vestal altar.
The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar still
occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully divided by
an enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin--one of the surviving
Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon. On either side of the
door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots, covered with spotless
sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a snow-covered grave, had
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