A bed
had still to be made up for Strong, and the morning's water to be
fetched, with clinking pail; and as we set about these household
duties, and showed off our wealth and conveniences before the
stranger, and had a glass of wine, I think, in honour of our
return, and trooped at length one after another up the flying
bridge of plank, and lay down to sleep in our shattered, moon-
pierced barrack, we were among the happiest sovereigns in the
world, and certainly ruled over the most contented people. Yet, in
our absence, the palace had been sacked. Wild cats, so the Hansons
said, had broken in and carried off a side of bacon, a hatchet, and
two knives.
EPISODES IN THE STORY OF A MINE
No one could live at Silverado and not be curious about the story
of the mine. We were surrounded by so many evidences of expense
and toil, we lived so entirely in the wreck of that great
enterprise, like mites in the ruins of a cheese, that the idea of
the old din and bustle haunted our repose. Our own house, the
forge, the dump, the chutes, the rails, the windlass, the mass of
broken plant; the two tunnels, one far below in the green dell, the
other on the platform where we kept our wine; the deep shaft, with
the sun-glints and the water-drops; above all, the ledge, that
great gaping slice out of the mountain shoulder, propped apart by
wooden wedges, on whose immediate margin, high above our heads, the
one tall pine precariously nodded--these stood for its greatness;
while, the dog-hutch, boot-jacks, old boots, old tavern bills, and
the very beds that we inherited from bygone miners, put in human
touches and realized for us the story of the past.
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