fter one of these
engagements, he was no sooner set free than he dashed up to the
Chinaman's house, where he had installed a printing-press, that great
element of civilisation, and the sound of his labours would be faintly
audible about the canyon half the day.

To walk at all was a laborious business; the foot sank and slid, the
boots were cut to pieces, among sharp, uneven, rolling stones. When we
crossed the platform in any direction, it was usual to lay a course,
following as much as possible the line of waggon rails. Thus, if water
were to be drawn, the water-carrier left the house along some tilting
planks that we had laid down, and not laid down very well. These carried
him to that great highroad, the railway; and the railway served him as
far as to the head of the shaft. But from thence to the spring and back
again he made the best of his unaided way, staggering among the stones,
and wading in low growth of the calcanthus, where the rattlesnakes lay
hissing at his passage. Yet I liked to draw water. It was pleasant to
dip the grey metal pail into the clean, colourless, cool water; pleasant
to carry it back, with the water lipping at the edge, and a broken
sunbeam quivering in the midst.

But the extreme roughness of the walking confined us in common practice
to the platform, and indeed to those parts of it that were most easily
accessible along the line of rails. The rails came straight forward from
the shaft, here and there overgrown with little green bushes, but still
entire, and still carrying a truck, which it was Lloyd's delight to
trundle to and fro by the hour with various ladings. About midway down
the platform, the railroad trended to the right, leaving our house and
coasting along the far side within a few yards of the madronas and the
forge, and not far off the latter, ended in a sort of platform on the
edge of the dump. There, in old days, the trucks were tipped, and their
load sent thundering down the chute. There, besides, was the only spot
where we could approach the margin of the dump. Anywhere else, you took
your life in your right hand when you came within a yard and a half to
peer over. For at any moment the dump might begin to slide and carry you
down and bury you below its ruins. Indeed, the neighbourhood of an old
mine is a place beset with dangers. For as still as Silverado was, at
any moment the report of rotten wood might tell us that the platform had
fallen into the shaft; the dump mig