about nine o’clock
First and foremost each man wanted to dance with Pretty Lizzie ; Long Potter 's two daughters came next , and failing them their buxom mother proved a bone of contention ; the non-successful ones , and their name was legion , having to dance with each other . And dance they did with a will . Never before or since have I seen such energetic dancing as we used to have at those bull-dances of diggings days . As the evening advanced and the liquor began to take effect , disputes became more frequent , disputes that were as a rule , promptly settled outside by a round of fisticuffs ; but perhaps the best hated man there was the trooper , who came in about nine o'clock , and monopolized Pretty Lizzie . He was a big , fair man , this trooper -- a gentleman evidently , down on his luck , as many a gentleman was in those days , and as evidently he was in love with Lizzie and she was in love with him . Oh , the adoring glances she cast at him as they went down the room together at a mad gallop . He got drunk as night advanced , and before I left I was dimly conscious of a dark corner where a sobbing woman was putting a pillow beneath the head of her insensible lover .