Alma proposes forming a bank, and looks to familiar faces to run it. To test himself, Swearengen grants audience to a long line of supplicants; talks with Farnum and Miss Isringhausen prove most illuminating. The arrival of low-priced Chinese whores begins the next phase in Tolliver and Wolcott's arrangement. Humiliated by Bullock, an angry claim owner looks to "square the scales." An enchanted Merrick tours a new schoolteacher about the camp. Wolcott's inner demons test his alliance with Tolliver, and prompt Stubbs and Utter to covert action.
