eliberate exits other than those they
had contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent,
relieved their surcharged feelings.

Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a
prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences and
hopes of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stopped
to consider that the improvements, buildings, and business were simply
the outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlement
or town, as it was now called, had neither produced nor exported capital
of itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that some
land was cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected and lumber
furnished from the inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were the
inhabitants themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital
or unlimited credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led to
Devil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcome
in getting things into the settlement were never surmounted for getting
things out of it. The lumber was practically valueless for export to
other settlements across the mountain roads, which were equally rich in
timber. The theory so enthusiastically held by the original locators,
that Devil's Ford was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and
absorbed the trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was
suffering an ironical corroboration.

One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford
Ditch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen
simply had their labor for the present transferred to excavating the
river banks, and the collection of vast heaps of "pay gravel." Specimens
from these mounds, taken from different localities, and at different
levels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis.
It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanent
richness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but a
renewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of engineering work
gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business
of the mine, which could not, however, prevent him from arranging
further combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. It
offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change of
scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous social
relations with Devil's Ford. In