Now, a swift, roaring jet of water, with the energy of a fall from the heights of the surrounding hills, tears down the bank of the gravel ahead of the dredge, and the chain of buckets picks it up and runs it and much water over the gold saving screens behind. Then when the treasure house of the bed rock is reached, the modern gold seekers get down on their knees and go into every cranny and crevice of the living rock and sweep out the golden grains with whisk brooms and loving care that housewife ne'er exhibited in her own sweeping in the corners.

In the spring of the year, when the snows on the heights commence to melt, and the mountain streams thunder down the canyons, white plumes of water from huge nozzles of Little Giants commence to gnaw at the banks of red gravel at the mouths of the gulches.

As they begin to crumble beneath the tearing of the water, the earth is washed down into the long lines of the flumes and sluice boxes, and the golden grains drop down into the pitfalls of the blocks that line the bottoms of the boxes. From the heights

run the long flumes, and then the huge steel pipes, in which the water surges with all the force of its thousand-foot fall.

Then as it roars from the six-inch nozzle of the little giant comes the lesson of the power of falling water. Sweep a sword down through the stream with all the swiftness in your power-and it will be instantly wrenched from your grasp and your arm broken. Let a man stand within the zone of that roaring white plumeand he is killed as promptly as if it had been a cannon. The paltry stream of a fire engine will knock men off their feet; the drive of the nozzles of a fire boat will tear down walls, but none of them are in the class of the full blown stream from the little giant, six inches at the start, and with the fall of probably a thousand feet back of it.

Probably no river in these United States is so large, so long, and yet so little known to the average American as this huge Klamath, brown-hued, Missouri-sized and conducting itself with the rollicksome abandon of a mountain brook.

T

HE wind had blown all night from the southeast-the "rain quarter," as we say on this part

of the Pacific Coast. When I awoke, the canvas walls of my little tent house were still flapping in the gale; and the sullen, continuous roar of the ocean warned me there was something doing outside.

I hurried into my clothes, a woman's shrill scream from somewhere in the vicinity of the pier increasing my nervuos haste. I was wild to find out what the old ocean had been up to while I slept, and the cause of that

scream.

I was not long in doubt, for as I opened the tent door, a great wave lifted itself to the top of the seawall and broke in a thunderous crash, showering a cascade of spray higher than the two story bungalow before it. Already the water had broken through the seawall and was plowing its way in rivulets across the sands only a few feet from our own back yard.

The woman who had screamed was running back from the pier sobbing, hysterically:

"Our town will be ruined!" she cried as she passed me.

I hurried out on the pier, but retreated in greater haste as a big wave broke evenly on either side of me with a mighty splash that shook the whole structure. As far as I could see, the waves had eaten away the sand clear of the seawall, and had broken through in numberless places.

Standing at the head of the pier where the waves were not so threatening, I could command a good view of the little peninsula on which our town is situated, and was amazed at what I saw at the spectacle of the ocean when really peeved, and at the work it had, in its rage, already accomplished.

There was a seven foot tide that morning-not an unusually high one, but formidable when backed by a gale. There were waves that took a running broad jump, and some that pole vaulted, but all broke over the sea-wall, spurting up such geysers of spray as few of the spectators had ever witnessed. The waves themselves were splashing over the verandas of the houses, and a few leaped to the second story balconies. Foaming streams of water were cutting out channels across the sands, already far on their way to meet the rapidly rising bay.

Heavy timbers were every moment being ripped from the sea-wall, and carried half way across the narrow peninsula before the waves that tore them from the pilings had spent their force.

Every house on the ocean front was endangered and one practically in ruins.

It was now half-past seven, and the tide would not reach its crest until eight-thirty. Every man and boy that could wield a shovel was on the scene filling sand bags for the protection

of the houses against the still rising floods.

Leaving the pier, I made my way, somewhat perilously, along Central avenue, the one street the peninsula has space for. By this time, the adventurous streams of water, spurting through the sea-wall, had found their way across the sands to the bay. In numerous places the cement pavements were crumbling and up-ending in irregular blocks as the sands washed out from under them.

As one of the women watchers remarked: "When the water's after you from both sides, it's no joke."

Two houses were plainly doomed, and from these the furniture was removed; and attention centered on saving the others. Mattresses, sand bags, old clothes, anything that might prevent those swirling tongues of water from licking the sands from under the houses were thrown down.

Few people were in their homes-it being the winter season, and Balboa mostly a summer resort-so the owners were spared much needless worry and alarm. The few of us who live here the year around, and who have learned to love the beautiful little coast resort, felt an uncontrollable sinking of the heart as we saw the handsome structures ruined, and realized that many more were in peril.

A new bungalow, costing thousands of dollars, was one of the first to be undermined, the water gaining entrance through the sea-wall directly in front of the place.

Here, the sand was eaten out in great mouthfuls until the big structure went down by the head in the hole made by the sea. A china cabinet, not yet removed to a place of safety, skidded merrily down the sharply inclined floor, and put to sea through the opening in the wall.

In spite of the destruction, one was compelled to take notice of a sort of grim humor that characterized this display of the elements. I could not help feeling that the ocean was, after all, merely at play. The waves, pouring eagerly through the breaches in

the wall, ripped boards from from the houses and carried them outside, only to bring them gleefully back for use in battering off more boards. Thick timbers from the sea-wall were tossed high in the air by the waves and later thrown across the breaches in the sidewalks, as if to repair the damage done by the streams of water.

The sea appeared to be bent on changing the topography of the whole. place. It pushed a small bungalow to one side, and ate out the lot on which it stood.

A little cottage was lifted by the waves and deposited on the farther side of the bungalow. Some small buildings were merely moved across the street, and the tiny houses of the Japanese servant, in the rear of one of the handsome bay houses, was left leaning its head against one corner of the large structure, looking “as if it was trying to butt it over," as one man remarked.

Two tent houses, standing side by side in the rear of a large house on the bay front, separated as if by common consent, and slipped gently into the bay, one on each side of the house. They rejoined one another at a pier farther down the peninsula.

A garage, on which the only pair of bantam chicks in Balboa was perched for safety, was lifted by the waves, turned around, and deposited in the same place; but the entrance is now on the side instead of the street, as before.

The human element of humor was

also present. In a portable house, surrounded by water, and with two feet of it inside, a graphophone played "Home, Sweet Home," while the house's owner exulted over the fact that the sand of his dearest enemy was washing over his own lot. "If I only had a surf board," he remarked as he watched the leaping, big waves, "I could ride the waves clear across the bay to the bluffs beyond."

Our town marshal, a big, softhearted fellow, always busy doing nothing much in particular, and who takes himself and his duties more seri

ously than any one else has ever done, was on hand. The look of "You can depend on me" that he carried down. the line was worth going far to see. On every man, woman and child he passed was bestowed a look of, "I'll save you, never fear," whether they were in danger or not.

Therefore, when our windly and benevolent marshal suddenly went down to his waistline in a patch of quicksand, freshly deposited by the waves, all Balboa gasped in dismay. For, how could we withstand the encroachments of an angry ocean if our doughty marshal was not on hand to drag it back by the tail? However, the brave man scrambled out onto firm ground, and will no doubt live to tell his grandchildren of his narrow escape from death on this memorable occasion.

By this time, Balboa Island, a small oval in the midst of Newport Bay, was under water, and people were going about all over it in boats. There was now sufficient water on the lower half of the peninsula to permit a freight boat to work its way to the endangered houses and remove the furniture.

Up to this time, we spectators had been so engrossed by the scenes before us that we had failed to notice how wide the stream of water, cutting off our retreat, had become. The water had been flowing across in the low places only, as we passed down; but now, rivulet had joined rivulet, until a broad, shallow river obstructed our return.

"I must save those women," our faithful marshal called, heroically abandoning the prosaic work of filling the sand bags to run to our rescue.

The water was neither deep nor dangerous, but the good marshal sounded the order for retreat. "We

must take no risks," he declared, rolling up his trousers and wading out before us.

With much splattering and laughter, and some real danger where the heavy timbers were piling up-we made our way to higher ground.

Here shivering in our wet shoes and damp clothing, yet unwilling to lose anything of the wonderful spectacle, we waited until the turning of the tide.

By and by, the waves began to fall back, little by little, as the tide receded. They towered and crashed till near noon; but their terrible impact gradually abated-to our infinite relief-without wrecking other than the two houses.

When it was all over every one visited the lower peninsula to see how much of it remained after the waters receded. It appeared to be all there, but as our witty friend remarked: "Real estate has been moving lively," and he was on the lookout for one of his own lots which he believed had sat down on the front lawn of a neighbor.

The sand dunes had been leveled until the peninsula was one smooth hard floor, and the playful ocean had built up an entire new lot in front of one of the handsome bay houses.

"I wanted to be on the bay front," remarked the owner, in disgust, "and now I have an inside lot."

But the most impressive work of the storm was to uncover an old, old hulk of a boat which, according to tradition, had sunk many years before. The heavy ribs stuck gauntly up from the sands so close in to the beach that it offered positive proof of the fact that it had not been a century ago since our little peninsula either existed not at all, or was much farther under water than at present.

MASTE