The story uses foreshadowing to signal a grim fate for the characters. Harte presages the expulsion of Oakhurst for his gambling and the other "outcasts" for their sins within the first page of the text. Having seen passersby ominously observing him, Oakhurst remarks to himself:
"I reckon they're after somebody [...] likely it's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
Something is going to go horribly wrong because of a combination of strict morals and bad luck. At the very beginning of the story, Mr. Oakhurst steps into the street and notices a "Sabbath lull" in the air, a “change in [the town's] moral atmosphere.” The townspeople around him appear to know something he does not, and he feels very uneasy because of events beyond his control. Oakhurst “whips” away the traces of Poker Flat from his boots, symbolically "purifying" them, as he will later be "purified" by the snow that kills him and his companions. The language in the beginning of the story is heavy with dread and the imagery of punishment—even Oakhurst’s gesture to clean his boots is a “whipping.” He cleans the dust of Poker Flat from himself as the town wishes to cleanse itself of his morally dubious presence.
Harte also foreshadows the idea, recurrent in the story, that life is a game of luck. This foreshadowing appears when Oakhurst accepts his exile:
[...] Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.
Harte establishes early that luck is unpredictable and often harsh, and is disproportionately predisposed to “favor” those in power. Oakhurst accepts the sentencing of the town because he has no choice, as he is later forced to accept the consequences of his companions' choices and the mountains' unforgiving weather.
