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Page 66
At this moment she heard voices, and the figures of two men
appeared on the trail.
They were talking earnestly, and walking as if familiar with the
spot, yet gazing around them as if at some novelty of the aspect.
"And look there," said one; "there has been some serious disturbance
of that outcrop," pointing in the direction of the spring; "the
lower part has distinctly subsided." He spoke with a certain
authority, and dominance of position, and was evidently the
superior, as he was the elder of the two, although both were roughly
dressed.
"Yes, it does kinder look as if it had lost its holt, like the
ledge yonder."
"And you see I am right; the movement was from east to west,"
continued the elder man.
The girl could not comprehend what they said, and even thought them
a little silly. But she advanced towards them; at which they
stopped short, staring at her. With feminine instinct she
addressed the more important one:--
"Ye ain't passed no wagon nor team goin' on, hev ye?"
"What sort of wagon?" said the man.
"Em'grant wagon, two yaller hosses. Old man--my dad--drivin'."
She added the latter kinship as a protecting influence against
strangers, in spite of her previous independence.
The men glanced at each other.
"How long ago?"
The girl suddenly remembered that she had slept two hours.
"Sens noon," she said hesitatingly.
"Since the earthquake?"
"Wot's that?"
The man came impatiently towards her. "How did you come here?"
"Got outer the wagon to walk. I reckon dad missed the trail, and
hez got off somewhere where I can't find him."
"What trail was he on,--where was he going?"
"Sank Hozay,* I reckon. He was goin' up the grade--side o' the
hill; he must hev turned off where there's a big rock hangin'
over."
* San Jose.
"Did you SEE him turn off?"
"No."
The second man, who was in hearing distance, had turned away, and
was ostentatiously examining the sky and the treetops; the man who
had spoken to her joined him, and they said something in a low
voice. They turned again and came slowly towards her. She, from
some obscure sense of imitation, stared at the treetops and the sky
as the second man had done. But the first man now laid his hand
kindly on her shoulder and said, "Sit down."
Then they told her there had been an earthquake so strong that it
had thrown down a part of the hillside, including the wagon trail.
That a wagon team and driver, such as she had described, had been
carried down with it, crushed to fragments, and buried under a
hundred feet of rock in the gulch below. A party had gone down to
examine, but it would be weeks perhaps before they found it, and
she must be prepared for the worst. She looked at them vaguely and
with tearless eyes.
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