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.