elicits a grunt and a stare in reply. Long years of chronic hunger and
wretchedness have well-nigh eradicated what little energy these Diggers
ever possessed. The discovery of gold among their native mountains has
been their bane; the only antidote the rude grave beneath the pine and
the happy hunting-grounds beyond.

The next morning finds me briskly trundling through the great, gloomy
snow-sheds that extend with but few breaks for the next forty miles.
When I emerge from them on the other end I shall be over the summit and
well down the eastern slope of the mountains. These huge sheds have been
built at great expense to protect the track from the vast quantities of
snow that fall every winter on these mountains. They wind around the
mountain-sides, their roofs built so slanting that the mighty avalanche
of rock and snow that comes thundering down from above glides harmlessly
over, and down the chasm on the other side, while the train glides along
unharmed beneath them. The section-houses, the water-tanks, stations,
and everything along here are all under the gloomy but friendly shelter
of the great protecting sheds. Fortunately I find the difficulties of
getting through much less than I had been led by rumors to anticipate;
and although no riding can be done in the sheds, I make very good progress,
and trudge merrily along, thankful of a chance to get over the mountains
without having to wait a month or six weeks for the snow outside to
disappear. At intervals short breaks occur in the sheds, where the track
runs over deep gulch or ravine, and at one of these openings the sinuous
structure can be traced for quite a long distance, winding its tortuous
way around the rugged mountain sides, and through the gloomy pine forest,
all but buried under the snow. It requires no great effort of the mind
to imagine it to be some wonderful relic of a past civilization, when a
venturesome race of men thus dared to invade these vast wintry solitudes
and burrow their way through the deep snow, like moles burrowing through