Ditch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen
simply had their labor for the present transferred to excavating the
river banks, and the collection of vast heaps of "pay gravel." Specimens
from these mounds, taken from different localities, and at different
levels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis.
It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanent
richness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but a
renewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of engineering work
gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business
of the mine, which could not, however, prevent him from arranging
further combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. It
offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change of
scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous social
relations with Devil's Ford. In the first flush of gratitude to their
father for this opportune holiday, something of harmony had been
restored to the family circle that had of late been shaken by discord.

But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. Both
Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointment
in the aspect of the civilization they were now reentering. They at
first attributed it to the change in their own habits during the last
three months, and their having become barbarous and countrified in
their seclusion. Certainly in the matter of dress they were behind the
fashions as revealed in Montgomery Street. But when the brief solace
afforded them by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed
little else to be gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous
and loyal devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were
the more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more civilized
gallantry of the better dressed and more carefully presented men they
met. For it must be admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticisms