The house I was staying in was the only one in the neighborhood, and was a sort of half store, half boarding-house. Several miners lived in it, and there were, besides, two or three storm-stayed travelers like myself. It was a small clapboard house, built on a rock immediately over the river, but still so far above it that we anticipated no danger from the flood. We were close to the mouth of a creek, however, which we one night fully expected would send the house on a voyage of discovery down the river. Some drift-logs up above had got jammed, and so altered the course of the stream as to bring it sweeping past the corner of the house, which merely rested on a number of posts. The waters rose to within an inch or two of the floor; and as they carried logs and rocks along with them, we feared that the posts would be carried away, when the whole fabric would immediately slip off the rocks into the angry river a few feet below. There was a small window at one end through which we might have escaped, and this was taken out that no time might be lost when the moment for clearing out should arrive, while axes also were kept in readiness, to smash through the back of the house, which rested on _terra firma_. It was an exceedingly dark night, very cold, and raining cats and dogs, so that the prospect of having to jump out of the window and sit on the rocks till morning was by no means pleasant to contemplate; but the idea of being washed into the river was still less agreeable, and no one ventured to sleep, as the water was already almost up to the floor, and a very slight rise would have smashed up the whole concern so quickly, that it was best to be on the alert. The house fortunately stood it out bravely till daylight, when some of the party put an end to the danger by going up the creek, and removing the accumulation of logs which had turned the water from its proper channel. After the rain ceased, we had to wait for two days till the river fell sufficiently to allow of its being crossed with any degree of safety; but on the third day, along with another man who was going to Nevada, I made the passage in a small skiff--not without considerable difficulty, however, for the river was still much swollen, and covered with logs and driftwood. On landing on the other side, we struck straight up the face of the mountain, and soon gained the high land, where we found a few inches of snow fast disappearing before the still powerful rays of the sun.