before very long I began to perceive that he did not exaggerate.

Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance above
referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of bribing even
Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of November, when the
passes were beginning to be blocked with snow, and those of the higher
mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed with it. On this particular
day the air was laden with gray, oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy
downfall, and instead of faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I
was kept in-doors, and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This
is a crushing weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are
obliged to endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when
the first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after about
twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which the sweetest
sound was odious, and the idea of food quite loathsome, the agony left
me, and a great desire for something to eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the
kindest of the kind, was gone down stairs at last, for which I felt
ungrateful gratitude--because she had been doing her best to charm
away my pain by low, monotonous Indian ditties, which made it ten times
worse; and yet I could not find heart to tell her so.

Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the November
day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to lift it. The
light of the west had been faint, and was dead; though often it used
to prolong our day by the backward glance of the ocean. With pangs of
youthful hunger, but a head still weak and dazy, I groped my way in the
dark through the passage and down the stairs of redwood.

At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into the
house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual cheerful
company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were only two
people present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of state, delaying
even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his face set sternly, as I
had never before beheld it. In the visitor's corner, as we called it,
where people sat to dry themselves, there was a man, and only one.

Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them. The
room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of
meal had been made at th