Year: 1872

Entering the cabin, be hastily made up a
couple ofIbuudles of things most valuable and
useful to him, and swinging them on the old
shovel, Chinaman. .fashion-he issued forth.
He was not moment to soon, for at the first
glance he saw, in the dim grey light Of the
dawnihg day, that the pent up waters from
ABOVE were already breaking through their
barrier, and that in few minutes the whole
vast mass would move upon the spot where
he was standing. Sezing his bundles, be
climed the mountain side TO a safe place, and
sat down to await the result.


And now the whole mass was in motion.
creeping slowly, bodily down the gulch. A
moment more, as the wet earth settled down,
the waters began to pour over the summit
and tear channel down through the center.
As the volume of water increased and the
channel deepened, great trees fell in from
either side, swapping off like pipe-stems,
while huge powders were caught up by the
roaring waters and swep away like punches
of foam. While the top of the slide was thus
being torn to pieces, the whole, pressed on
by the weight of the lake above, moved down
the gulch with increasing speed. The cabin
withstood its force for moment--and for a
moment only, then its logs were torn asunder
and it moved on with the rest. 1t was a
grand sight, yet terrible in its grandeur.


For an hour Jake sat and watched the
scene. by which time the waters had spent
their force. Then he shouldered his bundles
and made bis way down the gulch to where
there were some old cabins. in one Of which
he left his load ard thence made his way to
town. To say that Jake felt down hearted
at this sudden turn in his affairs would not
fully describe his feelings. To borrow his
own language, he "felt worse at being driv-
en- out of Humbugin this manner than he
did when he first left home. You see,' ad-
ded Jake, explainingly, when left home
to come here, | was young, and buoyant with
health and hope; had the world before me
and it seemed impossible that | should fail of
success. Now, I've been there on the Gulch
so long that it seems more like home to me
than any here else that I've the means to
go to-" There is more than one miner,
that we know of, Jake, that could talk ex-
actly as you do.


There was no lack of sympathy for him
among his brother-miners, wh@p 1T became
known that his cabin had been swep away
by the slide. 1t took a substantial form, too,
for he had a dozen offers of chance to
camp with one and another, until he saw an
opportunity to do better. One of these otfeis
he gladly accepted. and went over to get the
things he had left in the deserted cabin, and
take a last look at his old home.


He hardly knew the once familiar place.
Where the waters of the gulch had run on
the night when he stood in his slippers and
looked down on its empty bed, was now
piled many feet deep with the red mountain
earth. while the stream itself, turned from
its original course, had cut new channel
IL ha 1,ttIa At ,xbiob ho hin and
garden patch had stood. Jake could not
bear to look upon his desolated home, and
hastened away.


The little good fortune he had while on
Humbug, seemed to have deserted him in his
new locality, and it was not long before the
thoughts of that "lost lead" on Humbug be-
came to strong too be resisted. How prone
old miners are to wander perhaps many
miles away from some scene of their earlier
experiences, be gone, perchance for years,
and then return to work some spot which
they had had in their minds eye through all
their waderlngs. Thus it was with Jake
who, with the return of Spring, wended his
wav back to Humbug But he was more
fortunate than his class in general, for under
the site of his former house, in the new chan
mel of the gulch he found, not the lost lead
of Humbug, but a fair paying claim from
which, by summers work and the practice
of a better economy than that to which he
had been used, he laid by enough to keep the
promise be had made in his dream, and re-
turn to the old homestead before another
New Years Eve.


Whether Mr.. Morton, after his return,
found some fair one to take that place in his
heart once held by the perfdious Emily, this
Legend sayeth not, but from the opinion
which / entertain of man in general, am
inclined to believe he did, / am confirmed
in this view of the case by the fact that, for
awhile he kept writing about coming back,
but in his last letter to Slabtown chum, he
tells him that if he'll 90 to Humbug, and
run drift one hundred feet into Gas Point,
he will strike that lead which the Fleming
Brothers had, sure.