But this, somehow,
was not to Kelmar's fancy. He first proposed that we should "camp
someveres around, ain't it?" waving his hand cheerily as though to
weave a spell; and when that was firmly rejected, he decided that
we must take up house with the Hansons. Mrs. Hanson had been, from
the first, flustered, subdued, and a little pale; but from this
proposition she recoiled with haggard indignation. So did we, who
would have preferred, in a manner of speaking, death. But Kelmar
was not to be put by. He edged Mrs. Hanson into a corner, where
for a long time he threatened her with his forefinger, like a
character in Dickens; and the poor woman, driven to her
entrenchments, at last remembered with a shriek that there were
still some houses at the tunnel.
Thither we went; the Jews, who should already have been miles into
Lake County, still cheerily accompanying us. For about a furlong
we followed a good road alone, the hillside through the forest,
until suddenly that road widened out and came abruptly to an end.
A canyon, woody below, red, rocky, and naked overhead, was here
walled across by a dump of rolling stones, dangerously steep, and
from twenty to thirty feet in height. A rusty iron chute on wooden
legs came flying, like a monstrous gargoyle, across the parapet.
It was down this that they poured the precious ore; and below here
the carts stood to wait their lading, and carry it mill-ward down
the mountain.
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