peace reigned at Black Hat.

[Illustration: THEY FOUND HIM SENSELESS, AND CARRIED HIM TO THE SALOON,
WHERE THE CANDLES WERE ALREADY LIGHTED. ONE OF THE MINERS, WHO HAD BEEN
A DOCTOR, PROMPTLY EXAMINED HIS BRUISES.]

Suddenly a low but heavy rumble, and a trembling of the ground, roused
every man in camp, and, rushing out of their huts, the miners saw a mass
of stones and earth had been loosened far up the hillside, and were
breaking over the barricade in one place, and coming down in a perfect
torrent.

They were fortunately moving toward the river on a line obstructed by no
houses, though the hut of old Miller, who was very sick, was close to
the rocky torrent.

But while they stared, a young pine-tree, perhaps a foot thick, which
had been torn loose by the rocks and brought down by them, suddenly
tumbled, root first, over a steep rock, a few feet in front of old
Miller's door. The leverage exerted by the lower portion of the stem
threw the whole tree into a vertical position for an instant; then it
caught the wind, tottered, and finally fell directly on the front of old
Miller's hut, crushing in the gable and a portion of the front door, and
threatening the hut and its unfortunate occupant with immediate
destruction.

A deep groan and many terrible oaths burst from the boys, and then, with
one impulse, they rushed to the tree and attempted to move it; but it
lay at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the horizontal, its
roots heavy with dirt, on the ground in front of the door, and its top