red sunless among the joints of the mountain. No
wonder that it should better its pace when it sees, far before it,
daylight whitening in the arch, or that it should come trotting forth
into the sunlight with a song.

The two stages had gone by when I got down, and the Toll House stood,
dozing in sun and dust and silence, like a place enchanted. My mission
was after hay for bedding, and that I was readily promised. But when I
mentioned that we were waiting for Rufe, the people shook their heads.
Rufe was not a regular man anyway, it seemed; and if he got playing
poker----Well, poker was too many for Rufe. I had not yet heard them
bracketed together; but it seemed a natural conjunction, and commended
itself swiftly to my fears; and as soon as I returned to Silverado and
had told my story, we practically gave Hanson up, and set ourselves to
do what we could find do-able in our desert-island state.

The lower room had been the assayer's office. The floor was thick with
_debris_--part human, from the former occupants; part natural, sifted in
by mountain winds. In a sea of red dust there swam or floated sticks,
boards, hay, straw, stones, and paper; ancient newspapers, above
all--for the newspaper, especially when torn, soon becomes an
antiquity--and bills of the Silverado boarding-house, some dated
Silverado, some Calistoga Mine. Here is one, verbatim; and if any one
can calculate the scale of charges, he has my envious admiration.

Calistoga Mine, May 3rd, 1875.

John Stanley
To S. Chapman, Cr.
To board from April 1st, to April 30 $25 75
" " " May 1st, to 3rd 2 00
------
27 75

Where is John Stanley mining now? Where is S. Chapman, within whose
hospitable walls we were to lodge? The date was but five years old, but
in that time the world had changed for Silverado; like Palmyra in the
desert, it had outlived its people and its purpose; we camped, like
Layard, amid ruins, and these names spoke to us of prehistoric time. A
boot-jack, a pair of boots, a dog-hutch, and these bills of Mr.
Chapman's were the only speaking relics that we disinterred from all
that vast Silverado rubbish-heap; but what would I not have given to
unearth a letter, a pocket-book, a diary, only a ledger, or a roll of
names, to t