48 Recreations of a Sportsman 



dicated the street far below. Each house had 

 its tunnel, and as the snow increased and ac- 

 cumulated, the tunnel was lengthened and an- 

 other joint added to the stove-pipe to keep it 

 above the surface. In all the world, doubtless, 

 there was not so peculiar a state of affairs as 

 in this land of deepest snow; even the Eskimos 

 know nothing like it. 



As the men all miners of the snowed-up 

 mines in this part of the Sierra Nevada crawled 

 like ants out of the hole, they picked up their 

 skees, which had been thrust endwise into the 

 snow, put them on, and made their way up the 

 street, stopping at a big red flag and disappear- 

 ing, one by one, down the slide, into the saloon of 

 the town. All the available men had gathered, 

 as they did every day in this drear winter of 

 almost endless snow; snow that did not drift, 

 but dropped like feathers, until the entire valley 

 was closed and shut in, until the ranges were 

 covered so deeply that the small trees dis- 

 appeared, and only the tops of the large ones 

 were here and there to be seen. 



Big Alec strode up to a table around which 

 the citizens of Sierra Vista gathered. " Boys," 

 he began, " I reckon you 've heard the news. 

 Bill Hardy's woman had a baby this afternoon 

 a little gal about so big," holding his large 

 red hands about a foot apart, " and the old 

 Fogarty woman says she 's a regular snowflake 



