But those who repeated the rumors, or who reported that the channel was full, were summarily put down.

Men would not believe that such a calamity as a flood and the destruction of all their season's work could be impending.

There had been some showers, no doubt, as there had often been before, but it was ridiculous to talk of anything like rain a month before its time.

Still, in spite of these assertions, there was uneasiness at Pine Tree Gulch, and men looked at the driving clouds above and shook their heads before they went down to the shafts to work after dinner.
When the last customer had left and the bar was closed, Dick had nothing to do till evening, and he wandered outside and sat down on a stump, at first looking at the work going on in the valley, then so absorbed in his own thoughts that he noticed nothing, not even the driving mist which presently set in.

He was calculating that he had, with his savings from his wages and what had been given him by the miners, laid by eighty dollars.