ar of turbulent woods,
the tumultuous tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent
dissolution of the whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted
downfall. It came extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a
torrent, every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all
pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed
to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane. It came dangerously,
for one night the river, leaping the feeble barrier of Devil's Ford,
swept away houses and banks, scattered with unconscious irony the
laboriously collected heaps of gravel left for hydraulic machinery, and
spread out a vast and silent lake across the submerged flat.

In the hurry and confusion of that night the girls had thrown open their
cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope that was now
the bank of the river. Suddenly Christie felt her arm grasped, and she
was half-led, half-dragged, into the inner room. Her father stood before
her.

"Where is George Kearney?" he asked tremulously.

"George Kearney!" echoed Christie, for a moment believing the excitement
had turned her father's brain. "You know he is not here; he is in San
Francisco."

"He is here--I tell you," said Carr impatiently; "he has been here ever
since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir."

"George--here!" Christie could only gasp.

"Yes! He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all safe,
and he has gone on towards the flume. But what he is trying to do is
madness. If you see him, implore him to do no more. Let him abandon the
accursed flume to its fate. It has worked already too much woe upon us
all; why should it carry his brave and youthful soul down with it?"

The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed away,
with the hurrying crowd. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran out,
vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one face, lately
so dear in recollection that she felt she would die if she never saw it
again. Perplexed by confused voices in the woods, she lost track of
the crowd, until the voices suddenly were raised in one loud outcry,
followed by the crashing of timber, the splashing of water, a silence,
and then a dull, continuous roar. She ran vaguely on in the direction of
the reservoir, with her father's injunction still in her mind, until a
terrible idea displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and
ran to