A WAIF OF THE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER I

AT NEW CONSTANTINOPLE


IT had been snowing hard for twenty-four hours at Dead Man's Gulch.
Beginning with a few feathery particles, they had steadily increased
in number until the biting air was filled with billions of snowflakes,
which whirled and eddied in the gale that howled through the gorges
and cañons of the Sierras. It was still snowing with no sign of
cessation, and the blizzard blanketed the earth to the depth of
several feet, filling up the treacherous hollows, caverns and abysses
and making travel almost impossible for man or animal.

The shanties of the miners in Dead Man's Gulch were just eleven in
number. They were strung along the eastern side of the gorge and at an
altitude of two or three hundred feet from the bed of the pass or
cañon. The site protruded in the form of a table-land, offering a
secure foundation for the structures, which were thus elevated
sufficiently to be beyond reach of the terrific torrents that
sometimes rushed through the ravine during the melting of the snow in
the spring, or after one of those fierce cloud-bursts that give
scarcely a minute's warning of their coming.

The diggings were in the mountain side at varying distances. The
success in mining had been only moderate, although several promising
finds raised hopes. The population numbered precisely thirty men,
representing all quarters of the Union, while five came from Europe.