And on such a night as this, the dust having in some way choked the
wheels of material progress in Monte Flat, most of the inhabitants were
gathered listlessly in the gilded bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel,
spitting silently at the red-hot stove that tempered the mountain winds
to the shorn lambs of Monte Flat, and waiting for the rain.

Every method known to the Flat of beguiling the time until the advent of
this long-looked-for phenomenon had been tried. It is true, the methods
were not many, being limited chiefly to that form of popular facetiae
known as practical joking; and even this had assumed the seriousness
of a business-pursuit. Tommy Roy, who had spent two hours in digging
a ditch in front of his own door, into which a few friends casually
dropped during the evening, looked ennuye and dissatisfied. The four
prominent citizens, who, disguised as foot-pads, had stopped the county
treasurer on the Wingdam road, were jaded from their playful efforts
next morning. The principal physician and lawyer of Monte Flat, who had
entered into an unhallowed conspiracy to compel the sheriff of Calaveras
and his posse to serve a writ of ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly
disguised under the name of one "Major Ursus," who haunted the groves
of Heavytree Hill, wore an expression of resigned weariness. Even the
editor of "The Monte Flat Monitor," who had that morning written a
glowing account of a battle with the Wipneck Indians, for the benefit
of Eastern readers,--even HE looked grave and worn. When, at last, Abner
Dean of Angel's, who had been on a visit to San Francisco, walked into
the room, he was, of course, victimized in the usual way by one or two
apparently honest questions, which ended in his answering them, and then
falling into the trap of asking another, to his utter and complete shame
and mortification; but that was all. Nobody laughed; and Abner,
although a victim, did not lose his good-humor. He turned quietly on his
tormentors, and said,--