Page:A La California.djvu/410

354 cut off from all communication with its neighbors. The earth was buried deep beneath the white shroud which had so silently fallen upon it. The creek was bound in fetters of ice, and the piercing blast from the trumpet of rude Boreas, who sat amongst the crags high up the Sierras, had come down through the canons and gulches with a keenness that made them cut like a razor, and kept everybody within doors. Four months had elapsed since a mail had been received, and during all of that time the inhabitants of the camp had eaten their food, made snow-shoes, and waited patiently for news from the outer world.

A slight thaw, followed by a severe "cold snap," occurring a few days before the opening of my sketch, had formed a thick crust upon the snow. This crust being sufficiently strong to support the heaviest man, its advent was hailed with universal delight, because it enabled the miners to get abroad. The reader may rest assured that after having been held in snowy fetters so long, the residents were only too glad to visit the town, where they could spend a few hours in the drinking-saloons and stores in talking over the prospects of the coming season, or visit the gambling-house and indulge their passion for gaming—a passion that existed in the breast of nearly every miner in California during the five years following the advent of the mining population.

The gamblers, those who dealt faro, monte, and other games of chance, and who followed no other occupation, were delighted with the change. For weeks it had been "dog eat dog" with them, and