Still, It Was Not Ten O'clock, And The Night
Was Long Before Us, When One Of The Party Produced An
Old pack
of Spanish cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed
as a great windfall; and keeping a
Dim, flickering light by our
fagots, we played game after game, till one or two o'clock, when,
becoming really tired, we went to our logs again, one sitting up
at a time, in turn, to keep watch over the fire. Toward morning,
the rain ceased, and the air became sensibly colder, so that we found
sleep impossible, and sat up, watching for daybreak. No sooner
was it light than we went ashore, and began our preparations for
loading our vessel. We were not mistaken in the coldness of the
weather, for a white frost was on the ground, a thing we had never
seen before in California, and one or two little puddles of fresh
water were skimmed over with a thin coat of ice. In this state
of the weather and before sunrise, in the grey of the morning,
we had to wade off, nearly up to our hips in water, to load
the skiff with the wood by armsfull. The third mate remained
on board the launch, two more men staid in the skiff, to load
and manage it, and all the water-work, as usual, fell upon the
two youngest of us; and there we were, with frost on the ground,
wading forward and back, from the beach to the boat, with armsfull
of wood, barefooted, and our trowsers rolled up.
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