Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/20



a mountain-ridge which formed the eastern boundary of the village. It had a fine command of the whole prospect; and if mischief were in it, there was no reason why it shouldn't show itself. So it grew into a fact, with some, that a day of disaster was not far distant. But the morning of the fatal day came. It was cloudy and hot, almost murky. The goats on the mountain-side were quietly standing about in the bunches of chafarral; the quails in the ravines below forgot to whistle; all the trees on the hill-side were motionless and noiseless, and nothing broke the silence but the sound of blasts in distant claims, or the hurried exclamations of the villagers, who awaited the calamity —some, with eager, fearful interest, but more, perhaps, with that dare-devil and care-fornothing spirit, which so often comes to us in the time of impending danger.

Eight o'clock A.M., and a messenger is sent through the village, who states that the blast will be fired at eleven a.m. An hour later, and the time is extended to twelve M. At eleven, suspense begins to deepen. Those living near the blast find places of safety in the farther end of the village, or on the side of the mountain overlooking the town. The windows of the houses in Sucker Flat proper are whitened with human faces. They gather in groups on the side of the hill, below the store, and its large, back porch is jammed with men and boys. Wherever there is standing-room, giving a view of the mine, and thought to be reasonably safe, human forms may be seen, with eager, anxious faces, looking out to the base of the mountain. At half-past eleven, preparations commence in earnest. Three men go slowly up the hill, who seem to be fixing something along the bank. They are laying a wire from the blast to a position on the hill above it.

"A wire? and what for?" asks one. "Tis a'lectricity thing," is answered.

" And how long does it take it to burn, mon?" he asks again, little dreaming that a current of the flpid has circled the earth a half-dozen times while he asks the question.

The answer ranks the question in intelligence: "Oh! about three minutes, I guess, mon."

The wire is laid. They have reached the battery, and are now working about it. "Fifteen minutes of twelve," sings out a lusty-throated fellow, who is keeping time for us. 'Hold your hats, boys. I can feel the breath of the thing already." 'Only five minutes," he shouts again, and, with this announcement, a general commotion is manifest. One man fixes to jump from the platform; another finds his friend a much better bulwark than base; a third steps into the store, daring to take but a one-eye peep at it: and each seems to find something about his position that is spec.ally uncomfortable. 'One minute"'—a profound hush creeps over us. "Z7welve o'clock /"" The man at the battery is making a signal. *Tis answered by a shrill cry from the whistle on our left. Hardly a minute passes, when the foothill of the mountain reaches up toward the top, then settles down as swiftly, o'ertoppling large trees, engulfing old cabins, destroying every thing about it.

And the anxious audience. "Bah!" says the time-keeper; "it didn't begin to equal a three-hundred-keg, Blue-Gravel sensation." Nota hat was lost—not aman was shaken. "The biggest cheat of the diggings," is written on nearly every countenance.

The blast, however, has been most successful— never better on record. It has shown, also, the safety and economy of firing with electric currents —a method that must supersede all others, when it is more fully appreciated

This article would be quite incomplete without some reference to the amount