And the Welcome to another episode of one thousand one classic short stories, The Storytellers.

This one titled The Luck of Roaring Camp by Brett Hart.

It's a classic short story about a group of grizzled miners in a gold mining camp that do their best to raise an orphaned baby.

This short story by Brett Hart captured the excitement of California in the gold Rush days and helped propel Hart to fame

a Thomas Edison movie by the same name was released in 1910.

And now our story, The Luck of Roaring Camp by Brett Hart.

There was commotion in Roaring Camp.

It could not have been a fight, for in 1865 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire settlement.

The ditches and claims were not only deserted, but Tuttle's grocery had contributed

its gamblers, who, it will be remembered, calmly continued their their game the day that French Pete and Canaka Joe shot each other to death over the bar in the front room.

The whole camp was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing.

Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman was frequently repeated.

It was a name familiar enough in the camp, Cherokee Sal.

Perhaps the less set of her the better.

She was a course, and it is to be feared,

a very sinful woman.

But at that time, she was the only woman in roaring camp and was just then lying in sore extremity

when she most needed the administration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned and

irreclaimable.

She was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear,

even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood,

but now terrible in her loneliness.

...