at had been striving with the canvas roof all at once lifted
its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly in, and lay for a moment
like a shining blade upon his shoulder; and, knighted by its touch,
straightway plain Henry York arose, sustained, high-purposed and
self-reliant.

The rains had come at last. There was already a visible greenness on the
slopes of Heavytree Hill; and the long, white track of the Wingdam road
was lost in outlying pools and ponds a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The
spent water-courses, whose white bones had been sinuously trailed over
the flat, like the vertebrae of some forgotten saurian, were full again;
the dry bones moved once more in the valley; and there was joy in the
ditches, and a pardonable extravagance in the columns of "The Monte Flat
Monitor." "Never before in the history of the county has the yield
been so satisfactory. Our contemporary of 'The Hillside Beacon,' who
yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) that our best citizens
were leaving town in 'dugouts,' on account of the flood, will be glad
to hear that our distinguished fellow-townsman, Mr. Henry York, now on a
visit to his relatives in the East, lately took with him in his 'dugout'
the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars, the result of one week's
clean-up. We can imagine," continued that sprightly journal, "that no
such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside this season. And yet we
believe 'The Beacon' man wants a railroad." A few journals broke out
into poetry. The operator at Simpson's Crossing telegraphed to "The
Sacramento Universe" "All day the low clouds have shook their garnered
fulness down." A San Francisco journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly
disguised as editorial prose: "Rejoice: the gentle rain has come, the
bright and pearly rain, which scatters blessings on the hills, and sifts
them o'er the plain. Rejoice," &c. Indeed, there was only one to whom
the rain had not brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In some
mysterious and darksome way, it had interfered with the perfection of
his new method of reducing ores, and thrown the advent of that invention
back another season. It had brought him down to an habitual seat in the
bar-room, where, to heedless and inattentive ears, he sat and discoursed
of the East and his family.

No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumored that some funds had been
lodged with the landlord, by a person or persons unknown, whereby his
few wants were provided for. His m