isconcertingly half-leg deep at every third step. Our first
intention had been to go up to town; but we soon revised that, and went
down to the Morena cabin instead, with the idea of looking after the two
horses. The beasts, very shaggy underneath and plastered above, stood
humped up nose to tail. We looked into the cabin. The roof had leaked
like a sieve; and the interior was dripping in a thousand places.

"Reckon even the tent was better after all," acknowledged Yank, looking
with disfavour on the muddy floor.

We returned to the tent and made shift to get a fire going. After
cooking some hot food, we felt better, and set about drying our
blankets. In the canon we could hear the river roaring away hollowly.

"I'll bet she's on the rampage!" said Old.

"I'll bet she's got my cradle and all of my tools!" I cried, struck with
a sudden thought.

And then, about as we commenced to feel cheerful and contented again,
the scattered black clouds began to close ranks. One by one the patches
of blue sky narrowed and disappeared.

"Why!" cried Cal in astonishment, "I believe it's getting ready to rain
again!"

"Shucks!" replied Old, "It can't. There ain't no more rain."

Nevertheless there was, and plenty of it. We spent that second night
shifting as little as possible so as not to touch a new cold place in
our sodden blankets, while the waters roared down in almost a solid
sheet.

This lasted the incredible period of four days! Nobody then knew
anything about measuring rainfall; but, judging by later experience, I
should say we must have had close to seven inches. There was not much we
could do, except to get wetter and wetter, although we made shift to
double up at night, and to use the extra blankets thus released to make
a sort of double roof. This helped some.

The morning of the fifth day broke dazzlingly clear. The sky looked
burnished as a blue jewel; the sunlight glittered like shimmering metal;
distant objects stood out plain-cut, without atmosphere. For the first
time we felt encouraged to dare that awful mud, and so slopped over to
town.

We found the place fairly drowned out. No one, in his first year,
thought of building for the weather. Barnes's hotel, the Empire and the
Bella Union had come through without shipping a drop, for they had been
erected by men with experience in the California climate; but almost
everybody else had been leaked upon a-plenty. And the deep dust of the
travel-worn overland