anything you please, a-jawin' at each
other just like two cherrybums." Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine
boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to
him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed.
Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between
the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp;
she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and
resinous gum; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily,
the bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accompaniment.

Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were "flush times," and
the luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp
was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No
encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion
more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that
surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for
singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring
Camp inviolate. The expressman--their only connecting link with the
surrounding world--sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He
would say, "They've a street up there in 'Roaring' that would lay over
any street in Red Dog. They've got vines and flowers round their houses,
and they wash themselves twice a day. But they're mighty rough on
strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby."

With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement.
It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to invite
one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who
might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this
concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in
regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for
by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve
could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority
meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it.
And it did.

The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow
lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river,
and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a
tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant
trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain.