THE POCKET HUNTER 



before the unbridled flood, and the swirl of 

 foam that lashed him where he clung in the 

 tangle of scrub while the wall of water went 

 by. It went on against the cabin of Bill 

 Gerry and laid Bill stripped and broken on 

 a sand bar at the mouth of the Grape-vine, 

 seven miles away. There, when the sun 

 was up and the wrath of the rain spent, the 

 Pocket Hunter found and buried him; but 

 he never laid his own escape at any door 

 but the unintelligible favor of the Powers. 

 The journeyings of the Pocket Hunter 

 led him often into that mysterious country 

 beyond Hot Creek where a hidden force 

 works mischief, mole-like, under the crust 

 of the earth. Whatever agency is at work 

 in that neighborhood, and it is popularly- 

 supposed to be the devil, it changes means 

 and direction without time or season. It 

 creeps up whole hillsides with insidious 

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