ut their rough times in the
mountains. Some of them mentioned having been reduced to the extremity
of living on "ferrins" when all other food had failed. These accounts
were generally received, by the rest of the miners, with great outbursts
of laughter. That appeared to be their customary way of regarding all
their misfortunes,--at least, in the retrospect. We wondered what the
"ferrins" could be. Nobody seemed to resort to them, except in the
direst need. Upon inquiry, we found out that they were _boiled ferns_. I
have always noticed that even insects of all kinds pass by ferns. I
suspect that even the hungriest man would find them rather unsatisfying,
but this light diet seemed to have kept them in the most jovial spirits.

R. was rather averse to travelling in such company, and always presented
"Red" to me as the typical miner, when opportunities offered for our
getting down from Colville with a party from the mines. Finally I
persuaded him to accept either "Buffalo Bill," who offered to take us by
ourselves, or an Irishman who insisted upon having a few miners with
him. I think he was rather prejudiced against the former, on account of
his name; and we therefore made an agreement with the latter, to take
us, with only two miners, instead of ten as he at first desired, that R.
should see them before we started, and that we should have the wagon to
ourselves at night. As it happened, we left in haste, and did not see
the miners until they leaped from the wagon, and began to assist in
putting in our baggage. That was not an occasion, of course, for
criticising them. Besides that, I saw, when I first looked at them, that
they were rather harder to read than most people I had met; and I could
not in a minute tell what to make of them. Our wagoner said they were
"broke miners." I did not know exactly what that meant, but thought they
might be very desperate characters, made more so by special
circumstances. One of them looked like a brigand, with his dark hair and
eyes. But I didn't mind; for I was tired of travelling about, and
anxious to get home. I thought I would sleep most of the way down; so I
put back my head, and shut my eyes. Presently the dark man began to talk
with R., in a musical voice, about the soft Spanish names of places in
California; and I could not sleep much. Then he spoke of the primitive
forms in which minerals crystallized, the five-sided columns of volcanic
rock, and the little cubes of gold. I co