And now they were at Colfax, the junction of the narrow
gauge railroad, whence, at nine cents a mile, you travel northward to
Nevada City. The iron bars on the high, narrow windows of the station,
the low whistle of the little engine, like the lonesome cry of a wolf,
as it took the high trestle over Bear River, the very bars of dirt in
the river bed far below, proclaimed to John Keeler that he had returned
to the land of robbers and gold mining.
CHAPTER XI
The Snows of the Sierras
After the heat and turmoil of a day when the children have been
especially vexing, what mother does not smile in forgiveness upon the
peaceful faces of her offspring, whose characters in sleep appear as
spotless as the sheets which cover them? So smiled the sun upon the
grown-up children of the Sierras asleep under the winter snow. After the
heat and turmoil of the summer, the mad search for gold was over. Save
when there was a heavy snowstorm, the Graniteville stage traveled over
the mountains, as usual; but no highwayman molested it. It would have
been a practical impossibility for a robber to have made off with booty.
The snow was light and feathery, and the drifts were often twenty-five
feet deep.
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