pines overhead. There was comfort and companion
ship in the fire. We could see each other now,
our little colony of pilgrims. We looked at each
other and were revived.
We had a little coffee-pot, black and battered it is true, but the water boiled just the same, and as soon as if it had been silver.
This revived the Doctor. Hunger had much to do with his faintness. He now sat up and talked, in his low quiet way, looking into the fire and brushing the little mites of dust and pine-quills from his shirt, as if still to retain his great respectability of dress ; and by the time we all had finished our coffee, he was almost as cheerful as we had ever seen him before.
The moon came out clear and cold, and we spread our damp and dusty blankets on the quills between the pines, with the snowy front of the Shasta lifting, lifting like a bank of clouds away to the left, and the heads of many mining streams dipping away in so many wild and dubious directions that no one but our little leader, perhaps, could have found the way to the settlements without the gravest embarrassment.
Klamat had gone down the hill for water, this time leaving his rifle leaned against a pine, though not without casting a glance back over his shoulder as if to say, " Look sharp ! but I will be back at once." We all were still warming ourselves by the fire, I think, though there are some sudden things you cannot just recall.
A wave of fate strikes you so strong sometimes,
