[Devil’s Ford by Bret Harte]@TWC D-Link bookDevil’s Ford CHAPTER VIII 2/18
The town was still there, but where were the inhabitants? Four months ago they had left the straggling street thronged with busy citizens--groups at every corner, and a chaos of merchandise and traders in the open plaza or square beside the Presbyterian church.
Now all was changed.
Only a few wayfarers lifted their heads lazily as the coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square littered with empty boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes themselves, were gone.
The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town, stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life blood and was gorged with its prey. Whiskey Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself of a shorter foot trail to the house, that would give him half an hour's grace to make preparations, met them at the stage office with a buggy. A glance at the young girls, perhaps, convinced him that the graces of elegant worldly conversation were out of place with the revelation he read on their faces.
Perhaps, he, too, was a trifle indisposed.
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