But the sun only looked into this gloomy abyss for one short hour in the twenty-four, and then left it to the gathering shadows and impenetrable night.

It was ten o'clock by Sam's watch when they found a ledge of rocks on which they could make a landing.

This haven was discovered none too soon, for the severe straining the raft had had in the whirlpool had loosened the cords that held the logs and they threatened to come apart and let all into the water.

The remaining food was very much soaked, but their appet.i.tes were keen enough to eat the whole of it just as it was.

Two more days would see all of their provisions gone, and, realizing this fact, Sam proposed dividing what was left so as to last over three days, but against this arrangement Ike and Wall Shin entered a protest.

"Now, Mistah Sam," said Ike, "I ain't got nigh so much sinse as you has, but it'd been a heap sight bettah if you jest took my edvice."

"Your advice about what, Ike?" asked Sam.

"'Bout dat grub."

"What about it?"

"I proposed, night afore last, we should all go in and eat all we could-now, didn't I?"

"I believe, Ike, you did say something like that."

"An' you said 'no;' so w'at's the consekence?"

"The consequence is, Ike, that you obeyed me then, and I expect you to obey me still," said Sam firmly.

"Yes; an' I'll keep on obeyin' you till I die, but har's de pint," and Ike spread out his hand and looked at the palm as if he were reading.

"If we'd hab eat a lot more ob dat grub, den dar wouldn't have been so much lost. Wouldn't it be a heap sight better if we had dat stuff inside ob us dan at de bottom ob dat ar whirlpole?"

"We did everything for the best, Ike, and therefore we should not blame ourselves," said Sam.

"I no tinkee dat glub's in watel," said Wah Shin.

"Whar is it, den?" asked Ike.

"I tink Maj he lookee muchee fat. Him no so hungly like befole; mebbe him eatee glub."

The object of this awful accusation sat near by eyeing the little stock of provisions as if he could dispose of the lot without feeling any great discomfort.

"No," said Ulna, who usually listened to these conversations without taking part in them; "the dog did not eat that food."

"W'y you tinkee no?" asked Wah Shin.

"Because the bag in which the food was placed is gone, and the dog could not have eaten that."

"Me no so shule bout lat," said Wah Shin. "W'en dog him heap hungly him eat bag too."

Clearly Ike and Wah Shin had formed a conspiracy against the dog, and this only confirmed Sam in his attachment to the poor brute, though more than once he wished that he was in some other place.

Sam and Ulna at once set about repairing the raft, and while they were engaged in this work Ike showed that he had unbounded faith in his young master's knowledge by asking these questions:

"Mistah Sam, w'at you tink bout dis time?"

"Nothing, Ike," was the reply.

"Know 'bout whar we is?"

"I do not."

"Know whar we'z goin'?"

"No."

"Nor whin we'll git dar?"

"No."

"Eber heah ob sich a fix?"

"Never."

"If we gits out ob dis yeh won't neber want to try anudder sich sc.r.a.pe, I reckon?"

"No."

"Ye've had enough?"

"Yes."

"So has I, but dar's no use a gibbin' up so, Mistah Brown!" and then with a sudden change of manner that startled all hands, the dog included, Ike sang out in a rich tenor voice.

"Oh fust was made de sun, An' den was made de sky, An' den dey made de earf An' hung it up to dry, An' den de made de star, outer yalla gals' eyes Foh to gib a little light W'en de sun don't rise."

CHAPTER XIV.-ORDER AND DISORDER.

The storm died out over Hurley's Gulch, and except for the high current in the creek there was nothing to indicate that the land had been recently deluged.

The bluest of cloudless skies bent over the landscape; the verdureless rocks glistened in the light of the sun, as if they had recently been subjected to a furnace heat instead of being drenched by a flood.

The lines of the Sierra Madre Mountains, to the east, were so clear and sharply defined that they seemed to be but a short walk away instead of being seventy miles.

Only the ragged tents and dilapidated cabins showed the effects of the storm; perhaps we should include the crowd of red-eyed miners, who, with the evidences of unbridled dissipation on their faces, crowded about the princ.i.p.al saloon.

Frank Shirley and Badger were disappointed in the work they had planned for the night before.

They had spent much money and time in working the mob up to a pitch of unreasoning and brutal frenzy, and yet nothing had been done.