Figures of men crawled out of the holes, or disappeared into them, or, on raised platforms of hand-hewn timber, windlassed the thawed gravel to the surface, where it immediately froze.

The wreckage of the spring washing appeared everywhere--piles of sluice-boxes, sections of elevated flumes, huge water-wheels,--all the debris of an army of gold-mad men.
"It-all's plain gophering," Daylight muttered aloud.
He looked at the naked hills and realized the enormous wastage of wood that had taken place.

From this bird's-eye view he realized the monstrous confusion of their excited workings.

It was a gigantic inadequacy.

Each worked for himself, and the result was chaos.