Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/180

 loose and

broken from its foundation. No one spoke. The lightning lit the cabin like a bonfire. Klamat stood there in the cabin by his club and gun. There was in his face a grim delight. The Doctor lay on his face in his bunk, hiding his eyes in his two hands.

No one undressed that night in the camp.

The next morning the fury of the storm was over, but it was not yet settled. We ventured out and looked down into the stream. It was nearly large enough to float a steamer. The claim was filled up as perfectly as when we first took it from the hands of the Creator. Ten feet of water flowed swift and muddy over it towards the Klamat and the sea.

Logs, boards, shingles, rockers, toms, sluices, flumes, pans, riffles, aprons went drifting, bobbing, dodging down the angry river like a thousand eager swimmers.

The storm had stolen everything, and was rushing with his plunder straight as could be to the sea, as if he feared that dawn should catch him in the camp, and the miners come upon him to reclaim their goods.

Every man in the camp was ruined. No man had dreamed of this. Maybe a few had saved up a little fortune, but, as a rule, all their fortunes lay in the folds of the next few months. Every man had his burden now to bear. The mortgage on the farm, the home for the old, the orphans, the invalid