It was easy to see that only a small part of the rain reached the ground
in the form of drops. Most of it was thrashed into dusty spray like that
into which small waterfalls are divided when they dash on shelving
rocks. Never have I seen water coming from the sky in denser or more
passionate streams. The wind chased the spray forward in choking drifts,
and compelled me again and again to seek shelter in the dell copses and
back of large trees to rest and catch my breath. Wherever I went, on
ridges or in hollows, enthusiastic water still flashed and gurgled about
my ankles, recalling a wild winter flood in Yosemite when a hundred
waterfalls came booming and chanting together and filled the grand
valley with a sea-like roar.
After drifting an hour or two in the lower woods, I set out for the
summit of a hill 900 feet high, with a view to getting as near the heart
of the storm as possible. In order to reach it I had to cross Dry Creek,
a tributary of the Yuba that goes crawling along the base of the hill on
the northwest. It was now a booming river as large as the Tuolumne at
ordinary stages, its current brown with mining-mud washed down from many
a "claim," and mottled with sluice-boxes, fence-rails, and logs that had
long lain above its reach.
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