Inside the building the postal force, white and scared yet over the menacing growl of the beast they had so nearly roused, hastened to resume their tasks. I heard later that the last man in line reached the window only at three o'clock in the morning. Also that next day McGlynn was summoned by Geary, then postmaster, to account for his share in the row; and that in the end Geary apologized and was graciously forgiven by McGlynn! I can well believe it.

We found Yank and Talbot still at the edge of the hotel veranda.

"Look here, Tal!" said Johnny at once. "How are you going to finish all this business you've scared up, and get off to the mines within a reasonable time? We ought to start pretty soon."

"Mines?" echoed Talbot, "I'm not going to the mines! I wouldn't leave all this for a million mines. No: Yank and I have been talking it over. You boys will have to attend to the mining end of this business. I'll pay Frank's share and take a quarter of the profits, and Frank can pay me in addition half his profits. In return for the work I don't do, I'll put aside two hundred and twenty dollars and use it in my business here, and all of us will share in the profits I make from that amount. How does that strike you?"

"I don't like to lose you out of this," said Johnny disappointedly.

"Nor I," said I.

"And I hate to lose the adventure, boys," agreed Talbot earnestly. "But, honestly, I can't leave this place now even if I want to; and I certainly don't want to."

I turned in that night with the feeling that I had passed a very interesting day.



CHAPTER XIII

UP-RIVER

Two days later Yank, Johnny, and I embarked aboard a small bluff-bowed sailboat, waved our farewells to Talbot standing on the shore, and laid our course to cross the blue bay behind an island called Alcatraz. Our boatman was a short, swarthy man, with curly hair and gold rings in his ears. He handled his boat well, but spoke not at all. After a dozen attempts to get something more than monosyllables out of him, we gave it up, and settled ourselves to the solid enjoyment of a new adventure.

The breeze was strong, and drove even our rather clumsy craft at considerable speed. The blue waters of the bay flashed in the sun and riffled under the squalls. Spray dashed away from our bows. A chill raced in from the open Pacific, diluting the sunlight.

We stared ahead of us, all eyes. The bay was a veritable inland sea; and the shores ahead of us lay flat and wide, with blue hazy hills in the distance, and a great mountain hovering in midair to our right. Black cormorants going upwind flapped heavily by us just above the water, their necks stretched out. Gulls wheeled and screamed above us, or floated high and light like corks over the racing waves. Rafts of ducks lay bobbing, their necks furled, their head close to their bodies. A salt tang stirred our blood; and on the great mountain just north of the harbour entrance the shadows of canons were beginning most beautifully to define themselves.

Altogether it was a pleasant sail. We perched to windward, and smoked our pipes, and worked ourselves to a high pitch of enthusiasm over what we were going to see and do. The sailor too smoked his pipe, leaning against the long, heavy tiller.

The distant flat shores drew nearer. We turned a corner and could make out the mouth of a river, and across it a white line that, as we came up on it, proved to be the current breaking against the wind over a very solid bar. For the first time our sailor gave signs of life. He stood on his feet, squinted ahead, ordered us amidships, dropped the peak of the mainsail, took the sheet in his hand. We flew down against the breakers. In a moment we were in them. Two sickening bumps shook our very vertebrae. The mast swayed drunkenly from side to side as the boat rolled on her keel, the sail flopped, a following wave slopped heavily over the stern, and the water swashed forward across our feet. Then we recovered a trifle, staggered forward, bumped twice more, and slid into the smoother deep water. The sailor grunted, and passed us a dipper. We bailed her out while he raised again the peak of his sail.

Shortly after this experience we glided up the reaches of a wide beautiful river. It had no banks, but was bordered by the tall reeds called tules. As far as the eye could reach, and that was very far when we climbed part way up the mast to look, these tules extended. League after league they ran away like illimitable plains, green and brown and beautiful, until somewhere over the curve of the earth straight ahead they must have met distant blue hills. To the southeast there seemed no end but the sky.

From the level of the boat, however, we saw only a little way into the outer fringe. The water lay among the stalks, and mud hens with white bills pushed their way busily into intricate narrow unguessed waterways. Occasionally the hedge of the tules broke to a greater or lesser opening into a lagoon. These were like shallow lakes, in which sometimes grew clumps of grasses. They were covered with waterfowl. Never have I seen so many ducks and geese of all kinds. They literally covered the surface of the water, and fairly seemed to jostle each other as they swam busily to and fro, intent on some business of their own. Their comfortable, low conversational clucking and quacking was a pleasure to hear. When, out of curiosity, we fired a revolver shot, they rose in the air with a roar like that of a great waterfall, and their crossing lines of flight in the sky was like the multitude of midges in the sun. I remember one flock of snow-white geese that turned and wheeled, alternately throwing their bodies in shadow or in the sunlight, so that they flashed brilliantly.

As the sun declined, the wind fell. Fortunately the current in the river was hardly perceptible. We slipped along on glassy waters. Thousands upon thousands of blackbirds dipped across us uttering their calls. Against a saffron sky were long lines of waterfowl, their necks outstretched. A busy multitudinous noise of marsh birds rose and fell all about us. The sun was a huge red ball touching the distant hills.

At last the wind failed us entirely, but the sailor got out a pair of sweeps, and we took turns rowing. Within a half hour we caught the silhouette of three trees against the sky, and shortly landed on a little island of solid ground. Here we made camp for the night.

All next day, and the days after, being luckily favoured by steady fair winds, we glided up the river. I could not but wonder at the certainty with which our sailor picked the right passage from the numerous false channels that offered themselves. The water was beautifully clear and sweet; quite different from the muddy currents of to-day. Shortly the solid ground had drawn nearer; so that often we passed long stretches of earth standing above the tule-grown water. Along these strips grew sycamore and cottonwood trees of great size, and hanging vines of the wild grape. The trees were as yet bare of leaves, but everything else was green and beautiful. We could see the tracks of many deer along the flats, but caught no sight of the animals themselves. At one place, however, we did frighten a small band of half a dozen elk. They crashed away recklessly through the brush, making noise and splashing enough for a hundred. Yank threw one of his little pea bullets after them; and certainly hit, for we found drops of blood. The sailor shook his head disparagingly over the size of the rifle balls, to Yank's vast disgust. I never saw him come nearer to losing his temper. As a matter of fact I think the sailor's contention had something in it; the long accurate weapon with its tiny missile was probably all right when its user had a chance to plant the bullet exactly in a fatal spot, but not for such quick snap shooting as this. At any rate our visions of cheap fresh meat vanished on the hoof.

The last day out we came into a wide bottomland country with oaks. The distant blue hills had grown, and had become slate-gray. At noon we discerned ahead of us a low bluff, and a fork in the river; and among the oak trees the gleam of tents, and before them a tracery of masts where the boats and small ships lay moored to the trees. This was the embarcadero of Sutter's Fort beyond; or the new city of Sacramento, whichever you pleased. Here our boat journey ended.

We disembarked into a welter of confusion. Dust, men, mules, oxen, bales, boxes, barrels, and more dust. Everything was in the open air. Tents were pitched in the open, under the great oaks, anywhere and everywhere. Next, the river, and for perhaps a hundred yards from the banks, the canvas structures were arranged in rows along what were evidently intended to be streets; but beyond that every one simply "squatted" where he pleased. We tramped about until we found a clear space, and there dumped down our effects. They were simple enough; and our housekeeping consisted in spreading our blankets and canvas, and unpacking our frying pan and pots. The entire list of our provisions consisted of pork, flour, salt, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and some spirits.

After supper we went out in a body to see what we could find out concerning our way to the mines. We did not even possess a definite idea as to where we wanted to go!

In this quest we ran across our first definite discouragement. The place was full of men and they were all willing to talk. Fully three quarters were, like ourselves, headed toward the mines; and were consequently full of theoretical advice. The less they actually knew the more insistent they were that theirs was the only one sure route or locality or method. Of the remainder probably half were the permanent population of the place, and busily occupied in making what money they could. They were storekeepers, gamblers, wagon owners, saloonkeepers, transportation men. Of course we could quickly have had from most of these men very definite and practical advice as to where to go and how to get there; but the advice would most likely have been strongly tempered with self-interest. The rest of those we encountered were on their way back from the mines. And from them we got our first dash of cold water in the face.

According to them the whole gold-fable was vastly exaggerated. To be sure there was gold, no one could deny that, but it occurred very rarely, and in terrible places to get at. One had to put in ten dollars' worth of work, to get out one dollars' worth of dust. And provisions were so high that the cost of living ate up all the profits. Besides, we were much too late. All the good claims had been taken up and worked out by the earliest comers. There was much sickness in the mines, and men were dying like flies. A man was a fool ever to leave home but a double-dyed fool not to return there as soon as possible. Thus the army of the discouraged. There were so many of them, and they talked so convincingly, that I, for one, felt my golden dream dissipating; and a glance at Johnny's face showed that he was much in the same frame of mind. We were very young; and we had so long been keyed up so high that a reaction was almost inevitable. Yank showed no sign; but chewed his tobacco imperturbably.

We continued our inquiries, however, and had soon acquired a mass of varied information. The nearest mines were about sixty miles away; we could get our freight transported that far by the native Californian cargadores at fifty dollars the hundredweight. Or we could walk and carry our own goods. Or we might buy a horse or so to pack in our belongings. If we wanted to talk to the cargadores we must visit their camp over toward the south; if we wanted to buy horses we could do nothing better than to talk to McClellan, at Sutter's Fort. Fifty dollars a hundred seemed pretty steep for freighting; we would not be able to carry all we owned on our backs; we decided to try to buy the horses.

Accordingly next morning, after a delicious sleep under the open sky, we set out to cover the three or four miles to Sutter's Fort.

This was my first sight of the California country landscape, and I saw it at the most beautiful time of year. The low-rolling hills were bright green, against which blended the darker green of the parklike oaks. Over the slopes were washes of colour where the wild flowers grew, like bright scarves laid out in the sun. They were of deep orange, or an equally deep blue, or, perhaps, of mingled white and purple. Each variety, and there were many of them, seemed to grow by itself so that the colours were massed. Johnny muttered something about "the trailing glory—banners of the hills"; but whether that was a quotation or just Johnny I do not know.

The air was very warm and grateful, and the sky extraordinarily blue. Broad-pinioned birds wheeled slowly, very high; and all about us, on the tips of swaying bushes and in the tops of trees, thousands of golden larks were singing. They were in appearance like our meadow-larks back east, but their note was quite different; more joyous and lilting, but with the same liquid quality. We flushed many sparrows of different sorts; and we saw the plumed quail, the gallant, trim, little, well-groomed gentlemen, running rapidly ahead of us. And over it all showered the clear warmth of the sun, like some subtle golden ether that dissolved and disengaged from the sleeping hills multitudinous hummings of insects, songs of birds, odours of earth, perfumes of flowers.

In spite of ourselves our spirits rose. We forgot our anxious figurings on ways and means, our too concentrated hopes of success, our feverish, intent, single-minded desire for gold. Three abreast we marched forward through the waving, shimmering wild oats, humming once more the strains of the silly little song to which the gold seekers had elected to stride:

"I soon shall be in mining camps, And then I'll look around, And when I see the gold-dust there, I'll pick it off the ground.

"I'll scrape the mountains clean, old girl, I'll drain the rivers dry; I'm off for California. Susannah, don't you cry!"

Even old Yank joined in the chorus, and he had about as much voice as a rusty windmill, and about the same idea of tune as a hog has of war.

"Oh, Susannah! don't you cry for me! I'm off to California with my washbowl on my knee!"

We topped a rise and advanced on Sutter's Fort as though we intended by force and arms to take that historic post.



PART III

THE MINES



CHAPTER XIV

SUTTER'S FORT

Sutter's Fort was situated at the edge of the live-oak park. We found it to resemble a real fort, with high walls, bastions, and a single gate at each end through which one entered to a large enclosed square, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards long by fifty wide. The walls were not pierced for guns; and the defence seemed to depend entirely on the jutting bastions. The walls were double, and about twenty-five feet apart. Thus by roofing over this space, and dividing it with partitions, Sutter had made up his barracks, blacksmith shop, bakery, and the like. Later in our investigations we even ran across a woollen factory, a distillery, a billiard room, and a bowling alley! At the southern end of this long space stood a two-story house. Directly opposite the two-story house and at the other end of the enclosure was an adobe corral.

The place was crowded with people. A hundred or so miners rushed here and there on apparently very important business, or loafed contentedly against the posts or the sun-warmth of adobe walls. In this latter occupation they were aided and abetted by a number of the native Californians. Perhaps a hundred Indians were leading horses, carrying burdens or engaged in some other heavy toil. They were the first we had seen, and we examined them with considerable curiosity. A good many of them were nearly naked; but some had on portions of battered civilized apparel. Very few could make up a full suit of clothes; but contented themselves with either a coat, or a shirt, or a pair of pantaloons, or even with only a hat, as the case might be. They were very swarthy, squat, villainous-looking savages, with big heads, low foreheads, coarse hair, and beady little eyes.

We stopped for some time near the sentry box at the entrance, accustoming ourselves to the whirl and movement. Then we set out to find McClellan. He was almost immediately pointed out to us, a short, square, businesslike man, with a hard gray face, dealing competently with the pressure. A score of men surrounded him, each eager for his attention. While we hovered, awaiting our chance, two men walked in through the gate. They were accorded the compliment of almost a complete silence on the part of those who caught sight of them.

The first was a Californian about thirty-five or forty years of age, a man of a lofty, stern bearing, swarthy skin, glossy side whiskers, and bright supercilious eyes. He wore a light blue short jacket trimmed with scarlet and with silver buttons, a striped silk sash, breeches of crimson velvet met below by long embroidered deerskin boots. A black kerchief was bound crosswise on his head entirely concealing the hair; and a flat-crowned, wide, gray hat heavily ornamented with silver completed this gorgeous costume. He moved with the assured air of the aristocrat. The splendour of his apparel, the beauty of his face and figure, and the grace of his movements attracted the first glance from all eyes. Then immediately he was passed over in favour of his companion.

The latter was a shorter, heavier man, of more mature years. In fact his side whiskers were beginning to turn gray. His costume was plain, but exquisitely neat, and a strange blend of the civil and the military. The jacket for example, had been cut in the trim military fashion, but was worn open to exhibit the snowy cascade of the linen beneath. But nobody paid much attention to the man's dress. The dignity and assured calm of his face and eye at once impressed one with conviction of unusual quality.

Johnny stared for a moment, his brows knit. Then with an exclamation, he sprang forward.

"Captain Sutter!" he cried.

Sutter turned slowly, to look Johnny squarely in the face, his attitude one of cold but courteous inquiry. Johnny was approaching, hat in hand. I confess he astonished me. We had known him intimately for some months, and always as the harum-scarum, impulsive, hail fellow, bubbling, irresponsible. Now a new Johnny stepped forward, quiet, high-bred, courteous, self-contained. Before he had spoken a word, Captain Sutter's aloof expression had relaxed.

"I beg your pardon for addressing you so abruptly," Johnny was saying. "The surprise of the moment must excuse me. Ten years ago, sir, I had the pleasure of meeting you at the time you visited my father in Virginia."

"My dear boy!" cried Sutter. "You are, of course the son of Colonel Fairfax. But ten years ago—you were a very young man!"

"A small boy, rather," laughed Johnny.

They chatted for a few moments, exchanging news, I suppose, though they had drawn beyond our ear-shot. In a few moments we were summoned, and presented; first to Captain Sutter, then to Don Gaspar Martinez. The latter talked English well. Yank and I, both somewhat silent and embarrassed before all this splendour of manner, trailed the triumphal progress like two small boys. We were glad to trail, however. Captain Sutter took us about, showing us in turn all the many industries of the place.

"The old peaceful life is gone," said he. "The fort has become a trading post for miners. It is difficult now to get labour for my crops, and I have nearly abandoned cultivation. My Indians I have sent out to mine for me."

He showed us a row of long troughs outside the walls to which his Indian workmen had come twice a day for their rations of wheat porridge. "They scooped it out with their hands," he told us, "like animals." Also he pointed out the council circle beneath the trees where he used to meet the Indians. He had great influence with the surrounding tribes; and had always managed to live peacefully with them.

"But that is passing," said he. "The American miners, quite naturally, treat them as men; and they are really children. It makes misunderstanding, and bloodshed, and reprisals. The era of good feeling is about over. They still trust me, however, and will work for me."

Don Gaspar here excused himself on the ground of business, promising to rejoin us later.

"That trouble will come upon us next," said Captain Sutter, nodding after the Spaniard's retreating form. "It is already beginning. The Californians hold vast quantities of land with which they do almost nothing. A numerous and energetic race is coming; and it will require room. There is conflict there. And their titles are mixed; very mixed. It will behoove a man to hold a very clear title when the time comes."

"Your own titles are doubtless clear and strong," suggested Johnny.

"None better. My grant here came directly from the Mexican government itself." The Captain paused to chuckle, "I suspect that the reason it was given me so freely was political—there existed at that time a desire to break up the power of the Missions; and the establishment of rival colonies on a large scale would help to do that. The government evidently thought me competent to undertake the opening of this new country."

"Your grant is a large one?" surmised Johnny.

"Sixty miles by about twelve," said Captain Sutter.

We had by now finished our inspection, and stood by the southern gate.

"I am sorry," said Captain Sutter, "that I am not in a position to offer you hospitality. My own residence is at a farm on the Feather River. This fort, as no doubt you are aware, I have sold to the traders. In the changed conditions it is no longer necessary to me."

"Do you not regret the changed conditions?" asked Johnny after a moment. "I can imagine the interest in building a new community—all these industries, the training of the Indians to work, the growing of crops, the raising of cattle."

"One may regret changed conditions; but one cannot prevent their changing," said Captain Sutter in his even, placid manner. "The old condition was a very pleasant dream; this is a reality."

We walked back through the enclosure. Our companion was greeted on all sides with the greatest respect and affection. To all he responded with benign but unapproachable dignity. From the vociferating group he called the trader, McClellan, to whom he introduced us, all three, with urbane formality.

"These young men," he told McClellan, who listened to him intently, his brows knit, "are more than acquaintances, they are very especial old friends of mine. I wish to bespeak your good offices for what they may require. They are on their way to the mines. And now, gentlemen, I repeat, I am delighted to have had this opportunity; I wish you the best of luck; and I sincerely hope you may be able to visit me at Feather River, where you are always sure of a hearty welcome. Treat them well, McClellan."

"You know, Cap'n, friends of your'n are friends of mine," said McClellan briefly.

At the end of half an hour we found ourselves in possession of two pack-horses and saddles, and a load of provisions.

"Look out for hoss thieves," advised McClellan. "These yere Greasers will follow you for days waitin' for a chance to git your stock. Don't picket with rawhide rope or the coyotes are likely to knaw yore animiles loose. Better buy a couple of ha'r ropes from the nearest Mex. Take care of yoreselves. Good-bye." He was immediately immersed in his flood of business.

We were in no hurry to return, so we put in an hour or so talking with the idlers. From them we heard much praise for Sutter. He had sent out such and such expeditions to rescue snow-bound immigrants in the mountains; he had received hospitably the travel-worn transcontinentals; he had given freely to the indigent; and so on without end. I am very glad that even at second hand I had the chance to know this great-hearted old soldier of Charles X while in the glory of his possessions and the esteem of men. Acre by acre his lands were filched from him; and he died in Washington vainly petitioning Congress for restitution.



CHAPTER XV

THE GOLD TRAIL

We loaded our pack-horses, and set off next morning early on the trail up the American River. At last, it seemed to us, we were really under way; as though our long journeyings and many experiences had been but a preparation for this start. Our spirits were high, and we laughed and joked and sang extravagantly. Even Yank woke up and acted like a frisky colt. Such early wayfarers as we met, we hailed with shouts and chaffing; nor were we in the least abashed by an occasional surly response, or the not infrequent attempts to discourage our hopes. For when one man said there was no gold; another was as confident that the diggings were not even scratched.

The morning was a very fine one; a little chilly, with a thin white mist hanging low along the ground. This the sun soon dissipated. The birds sang everywhere. We trudged along the dusty road merrily.

Every little while we stopped to readjust the burdens to our animals. A mountaineer had showed us how to lash them on, but our skill at that sort of thing was miner's, and the packs would not hold. We had to do them one at a time, using the packed animal as a pattern from which to copy the hitch on the other. In this painful manner we learned the Squaw Hitch, which, for a long time, was to be the extent of our knowledge. However, we got on well enough, and mounted steadily by the turns and twists of an awful road, following the general course of the river below us.

On the hills grew high brush, some of it very beautiful. The buckthorn, for example, was just coming out; and the dogwood, and the mountain laurel. At first these clumps of bush were few and scattered; and the surface of the hills, carpeted with short grass, rolled gently away, or broke in stone dikes and outcrops. Then later, as we mounted, they drew together until they covered the mountainsides completely, save where oaks and madrone kept clear some space for themselves. After a time we began to see a scrubby long-needled pine thrusting its head here and there above the undergrowth. That was as far as we got that day. In the hollow of a ravine we found a tiny rill of water, and there we camped. Johnny offered some slight objections at first. It was only two o'clock of the afternoon, the trees were scrubby, the soil dusty, the place generally uncomfortable. But Yank shook his head.

"If we knew how they played this game, it might be all right to go ahead. But we don't," said he. "I've been noticing this trail pretty close; and I ain't seen much water except in the river; and that's an awful ways down. Maybe we'll find some water over the next hill, and maybe we won't. But we know there's water here. Then there's the question of hoss thieves. McClellan strikes me as a man to be believed. I don't know how they act; but you bet no hoss thief gets off with my hoss and me watchin'. But at night it's different, I don't know how they do things. But I do know that if we tie our hosses next us, they won't be stolen. And that's what I aim to do. But if we do that, we got to give them a chance to eat, hain't we? So we'll let them feed the rest of the afternoon, and we'll tie em up to-night."

This was much talk for Yank. In fact, the only time that taciturn individual ever would open up was in explanation of or argument about some expedient of wilderness life or travel. It sounded entirely logical. So we made camp.

Yank turned the two horses out into a grass meadow, and sat, his back against an oak tree, smoking his pipe and watching them. Johnny and I unrolled the beds, sorted out the simple cooking utensils, and started to cook. Occasional travellers on the road just above us shouted out friendly greetings. They were a miscellaneous lot. Most were headed toward the mountains. These journeyed in various ways. Some walked afoot and unencumbered, some carried apparently all their belongings on their backs, one outfit comprising three men had three saddle horses and four packs—a princely caravan. One of the cargadores' pack-trains went up the road enveloped in a thick cloud of dust—twenty or thirty pack-mules and four men on horseback herding them forward. A white mare, unharnessed save for a clanging bell, led the way; and all the mules followed her slavishly, the nose of one touching the tail of the other, as is the mule's besotted fashion. They were gay little animals, with silver buttons on their harness, and yellow sheepskin linings to their saddles. They carried a great variety of all sorts of things; and at the freighting rates quoted to us must have made money for their owners. Their drivers were a picturesque quartette in sombreros, wide sashes, and flowing garments. They sat their animals with a graceful careless ease beautiful to behold.

Near sundown two horsemen turned off the trail and rode down to our little trickle of water. When they drew near we recognized in one of them Don Gaspar Martinez. He wore still his gorgeous apparel of the day before, with only the addition of a pair of heavy silver ornamented spurs on his heels, and a brace of pistols in his sash. His horse, a magnificent chestnut, was harnessed in equal gorgeousness, with silvered broad bit, silver chains jangling therefrom, a plaited rawhide bridle and reins, a carved leather, high-pommelled saddle, also silver ornamented, and a bright coloured, woven saddle blanket beneath. The animal stepped daintily and proudly, lifting his little feet and planting them among the stones as though fastidiously. The man who rode with Don Gaspar was evidently of a lower class. He was, however, a straight handsome young fellow enough, with a dark clear complexion, a small moustache, and a pleasant smile. His dress and accoutrements were on the same general order as those of Don Gaspar, but of quieter colour and more serviceable material. His horse, however, was of the same high-bred type. A third animal followed, unled, packed with two cowhide boxes.

The Spaniard rode up to us and saluted courteously; then his eye lit with recognition.

"Ah," said he, "the good friends of our Capitan Sutter! This is to be well met. If it is not too much I would beg the favour of to camp."

"By all means, Don Gaspar," said Johnny rising. "The pleasure is of course our own."

Again saluting us, Don Gaspar and his companion withdrew a short distance up the little meadow. There the Spaniard sat down beneath a bush and proceeded to smoke a cigaretto, while his companion unsaddled the horses, turned them loose to graze, stacked up their saddles, and made simple camping arrangements.

"Old Plush Pants doesn't intend to do any work if he catches sight of it first," observed Johnny.

"Probably the other man is a servant?" I suggested.

"More likely a sort of dependent," amended Johnny. "They run a kind of patriarchal establishment, I've been told."

"Don't use them big words, Johnny," complained Yank, coming up with the horses.

"I meant they make the poor relations and kid brothers do the hustling," said Johnny.

"Now I understand you," said Yank. "I wish I could see what they do with their hosses nights. I bet they know how. And if I was a hoss thief, I'd surely take a long chance for that chestnut gelding."

"You might wander over later and find out," I suggested.

"And get my system full of lead—sure," said Yank.

The two camps did not exchange visits. We caught the flicker of their little fire; but we were really too tired to be curious, and we turned in early, our two animals tied fast to small trees at our feet.

The next day lifted us into the mountains. Big green peaks across which hung a bluish haze showed themselves between the hills. The latter were more precipitous; and the brush had now given way to pines of better size and quality than those seen lower down. The river foamed over rapids or ran darkling in pools and stretches. Along the roadside, rarely, we came upon rough-looking log cabins, or shacks of canvas, or tents. The owners were not at home. We thought them miners; but in the light of subsequent knowledge I believe that unlikely—the diggings were farther in.

We came upon the diggings quite suddenly. The trail ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men were working busily, like a lot of ants. Some were picking away at the surface of the ground, others had dug themselves down waist deep, and stooped and rose like legless bodies. Others had disappeared below ground, and showed occasionally only as shovel blades. From so far above the scene was very lively and animated, for each was working like a beaver, and the red shirts made gay little spots of colour. On the hillside clung a few white tents and log cabins; but the main town itself, we later discovered, as well as the larger diggings, lay around the bend and upstream.

We looked all about us for some path leading down to the river, but could find none; so perforce we had to continue on along the trail. Thus we entered the camp of Hangman's Gulch; for if it had been otherwise I am sure we would have located promptly where we had seen those red-shirted men.

The camp consisted merely of a closer-knit group of tents, log shacks, and a few larger buildings constructed of a queer combination of heavy hewn timbers and canvas. We saw nobody at all, though in some of the larger buildings we heard signs of life. However, we did not wait to investigate the wonders of Hangman's Gulch, but drove our animals along the one street, looking for the trail that should lead us back to the diggings. We missed it, somehow, but struck into a beaten path that took us upstream. This we followed a few hundred yards. It proceeded along a rough, boulder-strewn river-bed, around a point of rough, jagged rocks, and out to a very wide gravelly flat through which the river had made itself a narrow channel. The flat swarmed with men, all of them busy, and very silent.

Leading our pack-horses we approached the nearest pair of these men, and stood watching them curiously. One held a coarse screen of willow which he shook continuously above a common cooking-pot, while the other slowly shovelled earth over this sieve. When the two pots, which with the shovel seemed to be all the tools these men possessed, had been half filled thus with the fine earth, the men carried them to the river. We followed. The miners carefully submerged the pots, and commenced to stir their contents with their doubled fists. The light earth muddied the water, floated upward, and then flowed slowly over the rim of the pots and down the current. After a few minutes of this, they lifted the pots carefully, drained off the water, and started back.

"May we look?" ventured Johnny.

The taller man glanced at us, and our pack-horses, and nodded. This was the first time he had troubled to take a good look at us. The bottom of the pot was covered with fine black sand in which we caught the gleam and sparkle of something yellow.

"Is that gold?" I asked, awed.

"That's gold," the man repeated, his rather saturnine features lighting up with a grin. Then seeing our interest, he unbent a trifle. "We dry the sand, and then blow it away," he explained; and strode back to where his companion was impatiently waiting.

We stumbled on over the rocks and debris. There were probably something near a hundred men at work in the gulch. We soon observed that the pot method was considered a very crude and simple way of getting out the gold. Most of the men carried iron pans full of the earth to the waterside, where, after submerging until the lighter earth had floated off, they slopped the remainder over the side with a peculiar twisting, whirling motion, leaving at last only the black sand—and the gold! These pan miners were in the great majority. But one group of four men was doing business on a larger scale. They had constructed what looked like a very shallow baby-cradle on rockers into which they poured their earth and water. By rocking the cradle violently but steadily, they spilled the mud over the sides. Cleats had been nailed in the bottom to catch the black sand.

We wandered about here and there, looking with all our eyes. The miners were very busy and silent, but quite friendly, and allowed us to examine as much as we pleased the results of their operations. In the pots and cradles the yellow flake gold glittered plainly, contrasting with the black sand. In the pans, however, the residue spread out fan-shaped along the angle between the bottom and the side, and at the apex the gold lay heavy and beautiful all by itself. The men were generally bearded, tanned with working in this blinding sun, and plastered liberally with the red earth. We saw some queer sights, however; as when we came across a jolly pair dressed in what were the remains of ultra-fashionable garments up to and including plug hats! At one side working some distance from the stream were small groups of native Californians or Mexicans. They did not trouble to carry the earth all the way to the river; but, after screening it roughly, tossed it into the air above a canvas, thus winnowing out the heavier pay dirt. I thought this must be very disagreeable.

As we wandered about here and there among all these men so busily engaged, and with our own eyes saw pan after pan show gold, actual metallic guaranteed gold, such as rings and watches and money are made of, a growing excitement possessed us, the excitement of a small boy with a new and untried gun. We wanted to get at it ourselves. Only we did not know how.

Finally Yank approached one of the busy miners.

"Stranger," said he, "we're new to this. Maybe you can tell us where we can dig a little of this gold ourselves."

The man straightened his back, to exhibit a roving humorous blue eye, with which he examined Yank from top to toe.

"If," said he, "it wasn't for that eighteen-foot cannon you carry over your left arm, and a cold gray pair of eyes you carry in your head, I'd direct you up the sidehill yonder, and watch you sweat. As it is, you can work anywhere anybody else isn't working. Start in!"

"Can we dig right next to you, then?" asked Yank, nodding at an unbroken piece of ground just upstream.

The miner clambered carefully out of his waist-deep trench, searched his pockets, produced a pipe and tobacco. After lighting this he made Yank a low bow.

"Thanks for the compliment; but I warn you, this claim of mine is not very rich. I'm thinking of trying somewhere else."

"Don't you get any gold?"

"Oh, a few ounces a day."

"That suits me for a beginning," said Yank decidedly. "Come on, boys!"

The miner hopped back into his hole, only to stick his head out again for the purpose of telling us:

"Mind you keep fifteen feet away!"

With eager hands we slipped a pick and shovels from beneath the pack ropes, undid our iron bucket, and without further delay commenced feverishly to dig.

Johnny held the pail, while Yank and I vied with each other in being the first to get our shovelfuls into that receptacle. As a consequence we nearly swamped the pail first off, and had to pour some of the earth out again. Then we all three ran down to the river and took turns stirring that mud pie beneath the gently flowing waters in the manner of the "pot panners" we had first watched. After a good deal of trouble we found ourselves possessed of a thick layer of rocks and coarse pebbles.

"We forgot to screen it," I pointed out.

"We haven't any screen," said Johnny.

"Let's pick 'em out by hand?" suggested Yank.

We did so. The process emptied the pail. Each of us insisted on examining closely; but none of us succeeded in creating out of our desires any of that alluring black sand.

"I suppose we can't expect to get colour every time?" observed Johnny disappointedly. "Let's try her again."

We tried her again; and yet again; and then some more; but always with the same result. Our hands became puffed and wrinkled with constant immersion in the water, and began to feel sore from the continual stirring of the rubble.

"Something wrong," grunted Johnny into the abysmal silence in which we had been carrying on our work.

"We can't expect it every time," I reminded him.

"All the others seem to."

"Well, maybe we've struck a blank place; let's try somewhere else," suggested Yank.

Johnny went over to speak to our neighbour, who was engaged in tossing out shovelfuls of earth from an excavation into which he had nearly disappeared. At Johnny's hail, he straightened his back, so that his head bobbed out of the hole like a prairie dog.

"No, it doesn't matter where you dig," he answered Johnny's question. "The pay dirt is everywhere."

So we moved on a few hundred feet, picked another unoccupied patch, and resumed our efforts. No greater success rewarded us here.

"I believe maybe we ought to go deeper," surmised Yank.

"Some of these fellows are taking their dirt right off top of the ground," objected Johnny.

However, we unlimbered the pickaxe and went deeper; to the extent of two feet or more. It was good hard work, especially as we were all soft for it. The sun poured down on our backs with burning intensity; our hands blistered; and the round rocks and half-cemented rubble that made the bar were not the easiest things in the world to remove. However, we kept at it. Yank and I, having in times past been more or less accustomed to this sort of thing, got off much easier than did poor Johnny. About two feet down we came to a mixed coarse sand and stones, a little finer than the top dirt. This seemed to us promising, so we resumed our washing operations. They bore the same results as had the first; which was just the whole of nothing.

"We've got to hit it somewhere," said Johnny between his teeth. "Let's try another place."

We scrambled rather wearily, but with a dogged determination, out of our shallow hole. Our blue-eyed, long-bearded friend was sitting on a convenient boulder near at hand, his pipe between his teeth, watching our operations.

"Got any tobacco, boys?" he inquired genially. "Smoked my last until to-night, unless you'll lend."

Yank produced a plug, from which the stranger shaved some parings.

"Struck the dirt?" he inquired. "No, I see you haven't." He stretched himself and arose. "You aren't washing this stuff!" he cried in amazement, as his eye took in fully what we were about.

Then we learned what we might have known before—but how should we?—that the gold was not to be found in any and every sort of loose earth that might happen to be lying about, but only in either a sort of blue clay or a pulverized granite. Sometimes this "pay dirt" would be found atop the ground. Again, the miner had to dig for it.

"All the surface diggings are taken up," our friend told us. "So now you have to dig deep. It's about four feet down where I'm working. It'll probably be deeper up here. You'd better move back where you were."

Yank, stretched himself upright.

"Look here," he said decidedly; "let's get a little sense into ourselves. Here's our pore old hosses standing with their packs on, and we no place to stay, and no dinner; and we're scratchin' away at this bar like a lot of fool hens. There's other days comin'."

Johnny and I agreed with the common sense of the thing, but reluctantly. Now that we knew how, our enthusiasm surged up again. We wanted to get at it. The stranger's eyes twinkled sympathetically.

"Here, boys," said he, "I know just how you feel. Come with me."

He snatched up our bucket and strode back to his own claim, where he filled the receptacle with some of the earth he had thrown out.

"Go pan that," he advised us kindly.

We raced to the water, and once more stirred about the heavy contents of the pail until they had floated off with the water. In the bottom lay a fine black residue; and in that residue glittered the tiny yellow particles. We had actually panned our first gold!

Our friend examined it critically.

"That's about a twelve-cent pan," he adjudged it.

Somehow, in a vague way, we had unreasonably expected millions at a twist of the wrist; and the words, "twelve cents," had a rankly penurious sound to us. However, the miner patiently explained that a twelve-cent pan was a very good one; and indubitably it was real gold.

Yank, being older and less excitable, had not accompanied us to the waterside.

"Well, boys," he drawled, "that twelve cents is highly satisfactory, of course; but in the meantime we've lost about six hundred dollars' worth of hoss and grub."

Surely enough, our animals had tired of waiting for us, and had moved out packs and all. We hastily shouldered our implements.

"Don't you want to keep this claim next me?" inquired our acquaintance.

We stopped.

"Surely!" I replied. "But how do we do it?"

"Just leave your pick and shovel in the hole."

"Won't some one steal them?"

"No."

"What's to prevent?" I asked a little skeptically.

"Miners' law," he replied.

We almost immediately got trace of our strayed animals, as a number of men had seen them going upstream. In fact we had no difficulty whatever in finding them for they had simply followed up the rough stream-bed between the canon walls until it had opened up to a gentler slope and a hanging garden of grass and flowers. Here they had turned aside and were feeding. We caught them, and were just heading them back, when Yank stopped short.

"What's the matter with this here?" he inquired. "Here's feed, and water near, and it ain't so very far back to the diggings."

We looked about us, for the first time with seeing eyes. The little up-sloping meadow was blue and dull red with flowers; below us the stream brawled foam flecked among black rocks; the high hills rose up to meet the sky, and at our backs across the way the pines stood thick serried. Far up in the blue heavens some birds were circling slowly. Somehow the leisurely swing of these unhasting birds struck from us the feverish hurry that had lately filled our souls. We drew deep breaths; and for the first time the great peace and majesty of these California mountains cooled our spirits.

"I think it's a bully place, Yank," said Johnny soberly, "and that little bench up above us looks flat."

We clambered across the slant of the flower-spangled meadow to the bench, just within the fringe of the pines. It proved to be flat, and from the edge of it down the hill seeped a little spring marked by the feathery bracken. We entered a cool green place, peopled with shadows and the rare, considered notes of soft-voiced birds. Just over our threshold, as it were, was the sunlit, chirpy, buzzing, bright-coloured, busy world. Overhead a wind of many voices hummed through the pine tops. The golden sunlight flooded the mountains opposite, flashed from the stream, lay languorous on the meadow. Long bars of it slanted through an unguessed gap in the hills behind us to touch with magic the very tops of the trees over our heads. The sheen of the precious metal was over the land.



CHAPTER XVI

THE FIRST GOLD

We arose before daylight, picketed our horses, left our dishes unwashed, and hurried down to the diggings just at sun-up carrying our gold pans or "washbowls," and our extra tools. The bar was as yet deserted. We set to work with a will, taking turns with the pickaxe and the two shovels. I must confess that our speed slowed down considerably after the first wild burst, but we kept at it steadily. It was hard work, and there is no denying it, just the sort of plain hard work the day labourer does when he digs sewer trenches in the city streets. Only worse, perhaps, owing to the nature of the soil. It has struck me since that those few years of hard labour in the diggings, from '49 to '53 or '54, saw more actual manual toil accomplished than was ever before performed in the same time by the same number of men. The discouragement of those returning we now understood. They had expected to take the gold without toil; and were dismayed at the labour it had required. At any rate, we thought we were doing our share that morning, especially after the sun came up. We wielded our implements manfully, piled our debris to one side, and gradually achieved a sort of crumbling uncertain excavation reluctant to stay emptied.

About an hour after our arrival the other miners began to appear, smoking their pipes. They stretched themselves lazily, spat upon their hands, and set to. Our friend of the day before nodded at us cheerfully, and hopped down into his hole.

We removed what seemed to us tons of rock. About noon, just as we were thinking rather dispiritedly of knocking off work for a lunch—which in our early morning eagerness we had forgotten to bring—Johnny turned up a shovelful whose lower third consisted of the pulverized bluish clay. We promptly forgot both lunch and our own weariness.

"Hey!" shouted our friend, scrambling from his own claim. "Easy with the rocks! What are you conducting here? a volcano?" He peered down at us. "Pay dirt, hey? Well, take it easy; it won't run away!"

Take it easy! As well ask us to quit entirely! We tore at the rubble, which aggravatingly and obstinately cascaded down upon us from the sides; we scraped eagerly for more of that blue clay; at last we had filled our three pans with a rather mixed lot of the dirt, and raced to the river. Johnny fell over a boulder and scattered his panful far and wide. His manner of scuttling back to the hole after more reminded me irresistibly of the way a contestant in a candle race hurries back to the starting point to get his candle relighted.

We panned that dirt clumsily and hastily enough; and undoubtedly lost much valuable sand overside; but we ended each with a string of colour. We crowded together comparing our "pans." Then we went crazy. I suppose we had about a quarter of a dollar's worth of gold between us, but that was not the point. The long journey with all its hardships and adventures, the toil, the uncertainty, the hopes, the disappointments and reactions had at last their visible tangible conclusion. The tiny flecks of gold were a symbol. We yapped aloud, we kicked up our heels, we shook hands, we finally joined hands and danced around and around.

From all sides the miners came running up, dropping their tools with a clatter. We were assailed by a chorus of eager cries.

"What is it, boys?" "A strike?" "Whereabouts is your claim?" "Is it 'flour' or 'flake'?" "Let's see!"

They crowded around in a dense mob, and those nearest jostled to get a glimpse of our pans. Suddenly sobered by this interest in our doings, we would have edged away could we have got hold of our implements.

"Wall, I'll be durned!" snorted a tall state of Maine man in disgust. "This ain't no strike! This is an insane asylum."

The news slowly penetrated the crowd. A roar of laughter went up. Most of the men were hugely amused; but some few were so disgusted at having been fooled that they were almost inclined to take it as a personal affront that we had not made the expected "strike."

"You'd think they was a bunch of confounded Keskydees," growled one of them.

The miners slowly dispersed, returning to their own diggings. Somewhat red-faced, and very silent, we gathered up our pans and slunk back to the claim. Our neighbour stuck his head out of his hole. He alone had not joined the stampede in our direction.

"How do you like being popular heroes?" he grinned.

Johnny made as though to shy a rock at him, whereupon he ducked below ground.

However, our spirits soon recovered. We dumped the black sand into a little sack we had brought for the purpose. It made quite an appreciable bulge in that sack. We did not stop to realize that most of the bulge was sack and sand, and mighty little of it gold. It was something tangible and valuable; and we were filled with a tremendous desire to add to its bulk.

We worked with entire absorption, quite oblivious to all that was going on about us. It was only by accident that Yank looked up at last, so I do not know how long Don Gaspar had been there.

"Will you look at that!" cried Yank.

Don Gaspar, still in his embroidered boots, his crimson velvet breeches, his white linen, and his sombrero, but without the blue and silver jacket, was busily wielding a pickaxe a hundred feet or so away. His companion, or servant, was doing the heavier shovel work.

"Why, oh, why!" breathed Johnny at last, "do you suppose, if he must mine, he doesn't buy himself a suit of dungarees or a flannel shirt?"

"I'll bet it's the first hard work he ever did in his life," surmised Yank.

"And I'll bet he won't do that very long," I guessed.

But Don Gaspar seemed to have more sticking power than we gave him credit for. We did not pay him much further attention, for we were busy with our own affairs; but every time we glanced in his direction he appeared to be still at it. Our sack of sand was growing heavier; as indeed were our limbs. As a matter of fact we had been at harder work than any of us had been accustomed to, for very long hours, beneath a scorching sun, without food, and under strong excitement. We did not know when to quit; but the sun at last decided it for us by dipping below the mountains to the west.

We left our picks and shovels in our pit; but carried back with us our pans, for in them we wished to dry out our sand. The horses were still at their picket ropes; and we noticed near the lower end of the meadow, but within the bushes, three more animals moving slowly. A slim column of smoke ascended from beyond the bushes. Evidently we had neighbours.

We were dog tired, and so far starved that we did not know we were hungry. My eyes felt as though they must look like holes burned in a blanket. We lit a fire, and near it placed our panful of sand. But we did not take time to cook ourselves a decent meal; we were much too excited for that. A half-made pot of coffee, some pork burned crisp, and some hard bread comprised our supper. Then Yank and I took a handful of the dried sand in the other two pans, and commenced cautiously to blow it away. Johnny hovered over us full of suggestions, and premonitions of calamity.

"Don't blow too, hard, fellows," he besought us; "you'll blow away the gold! For heaven's sake, go easy!"

We growled at him, and blew. I confess that my heart went fast with great anxiety, as though the stakes of my correct blowing were millions. However, as we later discovered, it is almost impossible to blow incorrectly.

There is something really a little awing about pure gold new-born from the soil. Gold is such a stable article, so strictly guarded, so carefully checked and counted, that the actual production of metal that has had no existence savours almost of the alchemical. We had somewhat less than an ounce, to be sure; but that amount in flake gold bulks considerably. We did not think of it in terms of its worth in dollars; we looked on it only as the Gold, and we stared at the substantial little heap of yellow particles with fascinated awe.



CHAPTER XVII

THE DIGGINGS

The following days were replicas of the first. We ate hurriedly at odd times; we worked feverishly; we sank into our tumbled blankets at night too tired to wiggle. But the buckskin sack of gold was swelling and rounding out most satisfactorily. By the end of the week it contained over a pound!

But the long hours, the excitement, and the inadequate food told on our nerves. We snapped at each other impatiently at times; and once or twice came near to open quarrelling. Johnny and I were constantly pecking at each other over the most trivial concerns.

One morning we were halfway to the bar when we remembered that we had neglected to picket out the horses. It was necessary for one of us to go back, and we were all reluctant to do so.

"I'll be damned if I'm going to lug 'way up that hill," I growled to myself. "I tied them up yesterday, anyway."

Johnny caught this.

"Well, it wasn't your turn yesterday," he pointed out, "and it is to-day. I've got nothing to do with what you chose to do yesterday."

"Or any other day," I muttered.

"What's that?" cried Johnny truculently. "I couldn't hear. Speak up!"

We were flushed, and eying each other malevolently.

"That'll do!" said Yank, with an unexpected tone of authority. "Nobody will go back, and nobody will go ahead. We'll just sit down on this log, yere, while we smoke one pipe apiece. I've got something to say."

Johnny and I turned on him with a certain belligerency mingled with surprise. Yank had so habitually acted the part of taciturnity that his decided air of authority confused us. His slouch had straightened, his head was up, his mild eye sparkled. Suddenly I felt like a bad small boy; and I believe Johnny was the same. After a moment's hesitation we sat down on the log.

"Now," said Yank firmly, "it's about time we took stock. We been here now five days; we ain't had a decent meal of vittles in that time; we ain't fixed up our camp a mite; we ain't been to town to see the sights; we don't even know the looks of the man that's camped down below us. We've been too danged busy to be decent. Now we're goin' to call a halt. I should jedge we have a pound of gold, or tharabouts. How much is that worth, Johnny? You can figger in yore head."

"Along about two hundred and fifty dollars," said Johnny after a moment.

"Well, keep on figgerin'. How much does that come to apiece?"

"About eighty dollars, of course."

"And dividin' eighty by five?" persisted Yank.

"Sixteen."

"Well," drawled Yank, his steely blue eye softening to a twinkle, "sixteen dollars a day is fair wages, to be sure; but nothin' to get wildly excited over." He surveyed the two of us with some humour. "Hadn't thought of it that way, had you?" he asked. "Nuther had I until last night. I was so dog tired I couldn't sleep, and I got to figgerin' a little on my own hook."

"Why, I can do better than that in San Francisco—with half the work!" I cried.

"Maybe for a while," said Yank, "but here we got a chance to make a big strike most any time; and in the meantime to make good wages. But we ain't going to do it any quicker by killin' ourselves. Now to-day is Sunday. I ain't no religious man; but Sunday is a good day to quit. I propose we go back to camp peaceable, make a decent place to stay, cook ourselves up a squar' meal, wash out our clothes, visit the next camp, take a look at town, and enjoy ourselves."

Thus vanished the first and most wonderful romance of the gold. Reduced to wages it was somehow no longer so marvellous. The element of uncertainty was always there, to be sure; and an inexplicable fascination; but no longer had we any desire to dig up the whole place immediately. I suppose we moved nearly as much earth, but the fibres of our minds were relaxed, and we did it more easily and with less nervous wear and tear.

Also, as Yank suggested, we took pains to search out our fellow beings. The camper below us proved to be Don Gaspar, velvet breeches and all. He received us hospitably, and proffered perfumed cigarettos which we did not like, but which we smoked out of politeness. Our common ground of meeting was at first the natural one of the gold diggings. Don Gaspar and his man, whom he called Vasquez, had produced somewhat less flake gold than ourselves, but exhibited a half-ounce nugget and several smaller lumps. We could not make him out. Neither his appearance nor his personal equipment suggested necessity; and yet he laboured as hard as the rest of us. His gaudy costume was splashed and grimy with the red mud, although evidently he had made some attempt to brush it. The linen was, of course, hopeless. He showed us the blisters on his small aristocratic-looking hands.

"It is the hard work" he stated simply, "but one gets the gold."

From that subject we passed on to horses. He confessed that he was uneasy as to the safety of his own magnificent animals; and succeeded in alarming us as to our own.

"Thos' Indian," he told us, "are always out to essteal; and the paisanos. It has been tole me that Andreas Amijo and his robbers are near. Some day we loose our horse!"

Our anxiety at this time was given an edge by the fact that the horses, having fed well, and becoming tired of the same place, were inclined to stray. It was impossible to keep them always on picket lines—the nature of the meadow would not permit it—and they soon learned to be very clever with their hobbles. Several mornings we put in an hour or so hunting them up and bringing them in before we could start work for the day. This wasted both time and temper. The result was that we drifted into partnership with Don Gaspar and Vasquez. I do not remember who proposed the arrangement; indeed, I am inclined to think it just came about naturally from our many discussions on the subject. Under the terms of it we appointed Vasquez to cook all the meals, take full care of the horses, chop the wood, draw the water, and keep camp generally. The rest of us worked in couples at the bar. We divided the gold into five equal parts.

Our production at this time ran from five to seven ounces a day, which was, of course, good wages, but would not make our fortunes. We soon fell into a rut, working cheerfully and interestedly, but without excitement. The nature of our produce kept our attention. We should long since have wearied of any other job requiring an equal amount of work, but there was a never-ending fascination in blowing away the debris from the virgin gold. And one day, not far from us, two Hollanders—"Dutch Charleys," as the miners called that nationality—scooped from a depression in the bedrock mixed coarse gold thirty odd pounds in weight—over $5,000! That revived our interest, you may be sure.

Most of the miners seemed content to stick to panning. Their argument was that by this method they could accumulate a fair amount of dust, and ran just as good chances of a "strike" as the next fellow. Furthermore, they had no tools, no knowledge and no time to make cradles. Those implements had to be very accurately constructed.

We discussed this matter almost every evening. Yank was a great believer in improving the efficiency of our equipment.

"It'll handle four or five times the dirt," said he "and that means four or five times the dust."

"There's no lumber to be had anywhere," I objected.

"I know where there's three good stout boxes made of real lumber that we can get for forty dollars," said Yank.

"You can't cut that stuff up with an axe."

"John Semple has a saw, a plane, and a hammer; he's a carpenter."

"You bet he is!" agreed Johnny. "I was talking to him last night. He won't lend his tools; and he won't hire them. He'll come with them for fifty dollars a day."

"All right," said Yank, "let's hire him. I'm pretty handy, and I'll stay right in camp and help him. Vasquez can go dig instead of me. We can get 'em cut out and fitted in two days, anyway. We've got the money!"

I think none of us was very enthusiastic on this subject except Yank; but he finally carried the day. Vasquez, somewhat to his chagrin, I thought, resumed his shovel. Yank and John Semple tinkered away for the allotted two days, and triumphantly produced two cradles at a cost of a round one hundred and fifty dollars.

Although we had been somewhat doubtful as to the advisability of spending this sum, I am bound to state that Yank's insistence was justified. It certainly made the work easier. We took turns shovelling the earth and pouring in the water, and "rocking the baby." Our production jumped two or three ounces a day.



CHAPTER XVIII

BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT

Our visit to the town we postponed from day to day because we were either too busy or too tired. We thought we could about figure out what that crude sort of village would be like. Then on Saturday evening our neighbour with the twinkling eye—whom we called McNally, without conviction, because he told us to—informed us that there would be a miners' meeting next day, and that we would be expected to attend.

Accordingly we visited the town. The street was full of men idling slowly to and fro. All the larger structures were wide open, and from within could be heard the sounds of hurdy-gurdies, loud laughter and noisy talk. At one end of the street a group was organizing a horse race; and toward this Don Gaspar took his immediate departure. A smaller group surrounded two wrestlers. At one side a jumping match was going on.

Among the usual incongruities we saw some that amused us more than ordinarily. The Indians, for example, were rather numerous, and remarkable. One wore as his sole garment an old dress coat: another had tied a pair of trousers around his waist; a third had piled a half dozen hats atop, one over the other; and many had on two or more coats. They were, to a man, well drunken. Their squaws, fat and unattractive, squatted outside the single store of the place. We saw also a dozen or so white men dressed very plainly and shabbily, tall, lank, and spindly, rather weakly in general appearance, their faces sallow, their eyes rather childish but crafty and treacherous, their hair thin and straight. The points in common were pointed, nearly brimless hats, like small extinguishers, and that they were the only men to use suspenders. They were from Pike County in Missouri; and in our experience with them we found their appearance a close indication of their character. They were exceedingly skilful with both axe and rifle, were expert backwoodsmen, but without physical strength, very childish and ignorant, vindictive, narrow, and so extremely clannish and tenacious of their own opinions that they were always an exasperating element to be reckoned with, in any public matter. We saw also a compact little group of dark small men, with bright eyes and quick manners. They held close together and chattered like a lot of magpies. McNally, who had spotted us from afar, informed us that these were "keskydees," and that they always did stick close together.

"What are 'keskydees'?" I asked him.

"That's what everybody calls them," said McNally. "I suppose it's because they always say it, 'Keskydee, keskydee,' like a lot of chickadees."

"French!" cried Johnny, suddenly enlightened. "Q'estce qu'il dit."

"Yes, that's it," agreed McNally; "keskydee. What does it mean, anyway?"

"What is he saying," translated Johnny.

At this time there were a great many French in California; and for a number of years I could not quite understand why. Then I learned that most of them were prize winners in a series of lotteries, called the Lotteries of the Golden Ingot. The prizes were passages to California, and the lotteries were very popular. The French, or keskydees, as they were universally called, always went about in gangs, while the other nationalities were more inclined to amalgamate with the rest of the community. We saw, also, several "Dutch Charleys" who had struck it rich. They were moon-faced, bland, chuckle-headed looking men, generally with walrus moustaches, squat and heavy, with fatuous, placid smiles. I suppose they had no real idea of values, but knew only the difference between having money and not having money. These prosperous individuals carried two or even more watches at the ends of long home-made chains constructed of gold nuggets fastened together with lengths of copper wire. The chains were looped around their necks, about their shoulders and waists, and hung down in long festoons. We had three apparently, of these Dutch Charleys, all deadly rivals in magnificence. They paraded slowly up and down the street, quite satisfied with themselves, and casting malevolent glances at each other when they passed.

The two gambling places and saloons were hard at it. The low rooms were full of smoke, and crowded with slowly jostling men. In contrast to the deadly quiet of such places in San Francisco, these were full of noise and hubbub. The men moved restlessly, threw down their little bags of dust impatiently, and accepted victory or defeat with very audible comments. The gamblers, dressed in black, pale, sat steady-eyed and silent behind their layouts. I suppose the life must already have developed, if not a type, at least a uniform mental attitude that showed itself in outward expression. That was, first of all, an intent, quiet watchfulness; and, secondly, an iron resolution to meet whatever offered. The gambler must be prepared instantly to shoot; and at the same time he must realize fully that shooting is going to get him in trouble. For the sympathy of a mining camp was generally strongly against him when it came to a question of this sort. We treated ourselves to a drink at the bar, and went outside.

Already the drift of miners was toward the end of the street where a good sized crowd had gathered. We fell in. Under a large oak tree had been placed a barrel and several boxes from the store, and on these latter our friend John Semple, the carpenter, was mounting.

"John's the alcalde," McNally explained to us. "He's the most level-headed man in these diggings."

Most of the miners sat down on the ground in front, though some remained afoot. Semple rapped sharply on the barrel with the muzzle of his revolver.

"This is a miners' meeting," he stated briefly. "And we have several things to talk about. Most important thing, 'cordin' to my notion, is this row about that big nugget. Seems these yere three men, whose names I disremember, is partners and is panning down there in the lower diggings, and while one of them is grubbing around with a shovel getting ready to fill the company pan, he sees this yere nugget in the shovel, and annexes it. Now he claims it's his nugget, and the rest of 'em claim it belongs to all of them as partners. How about it?"

Two men sprang to their feet and began to talk.

"You set down!" Semple ordered them. "You ain't got nothing to do with decidin' this. We'll let you know what to do. If the facts ain't right, as I stated 'em, say so; but we don't want no theories out of you. Set down! I say."

They subsided, and a silence fell which no one seemed inclined to break.

"Well," said Semple impatiently, "come on! Speak up! Whar's all this assorted lot of theories I been hearing in the say-loons ever since that nugget was turned up?"

A man with the most extraordinarily ragged garments got to his feet and began to speak in a pleasant and cultivated voice.

"I have no solution to offer this company," said he, "but I am, or was, a New York lawyer; and if my knowledge of partnerships will help any, this is the New York law." He sketched briefly the New York rulings on partnerships, and sat down.

"Much obliged, I'm sure," said Semple cordially. "We're glad to know how they've figgered it out down thar. Only trouble, as far as I see, is that they ain't usually findin' many nuggets down that neck of the woods; so they ain't precisely fitted the case. Anybody know anything nearer to home?"

"I panned in Shirttail Bar last two months," blurted a hoarse and embarrassed individual, without rising, "and down thar they had a reg'lation that airy nugget that weighs over a half ounce that is found before the dirt is thrown in the cradle belongs to the man that finds it, and not to the company. Of course this here is a pan, and not a cradle."

"That's more like business. Anybody know if anywhar they do it the other way around?"

Apparently nobody did.

"Anybody got any idees as to why we shouldn't follow Shirttail in this matter? Dog-gone you! Set down! You ain't got nothin' to say here."

The man appealed to the crowd.

"Ain't I got a right to be heard in my own case?" he demanded.

"This ain't your case," persisted John Semple stoutly; "it's decidin' what the policy of this camp is goin' to be regardin' nuggets. Your dog-gone case is mighty unimportant and you're a prejudiced party. And if you don't set down, I'll come down there and argue with you! If none of you other fellows has anything to say, we'll vote on it."

We then and there decided, almost unanimously, to follow Shirttail.

"Now," resumed Semple, after this matter had been disposed of, "there's a bunch of these yere keskydees around throwin' assorted duckfits all this morning; and as near as I can make out they say somebody's jumped their claim or their camp, or something. Jim, supposin' you and your tin star saunter down and eject these jumpers."

A very tall, quiet, slow moving man arose, aimed his tobacco juice at a small tree, drawled out the words, "All right, Jedge," and departed, trailed by a half dozen jabbering keskydees, to whom he paid not the slightest attention.

"Now," said Semple, "we got a couple of Greasers yere caught stealin'. Buck Barry and Missouri Jones caught them at it, so there ain't much use hearin' witnesses as to the fact. Question is: what do we want to do with them?"

"What did they steal?" demanded a voice.

"They just nat'rally didn't steal nothin'," said a heavy built, square-jawed, clean-shaven man whom I guessed to be Buck Barry. "Not while I was around."

"Yes," persisted the other, "but what was they after."

"Oh, an extry pair of boots, and a shirt, and some tobacco, et cetery," replied Buck Barry contemptuously.

"Let's see them," shouted several voices.

After a moment's delay two ragged and furtive Mexicans were dragged before the assembly. A contemplative silence ensued. Then an elderly man with a square gray beard spoke up.

"Well," said he deliberately, "airy man so low down and shif'less and miserable as to go to stealin' boots and shirts and tobacco in this camp is shore outside my corral. He sure must be a miserable person. Why'n hell didn't Buck and Missou give him a few lifts with the toes of their boots, and not come botherin' us with them?"

Both Barry and Jones started to reply, but Semple cut them short.

"They was going to do just that," he announced, "but I persuaded them to bring this matter up before this meetin', because we got to begin to take some measures to stop this kind of a nuisance. There's a lot of undesirables driftin' into this camp lately. You boys all recall how last fall we kep' our dust under our bunks or most anywhere, and felt perfectly safe about it; but that ain't now. A man has to carry his dust right with him. Now, if we can't leave our tents feeling our goods is safe, what do you expect to do about it? We got to throw the fear of God into the black hearts of these hounds."

At this juncture Jim, the sheriff, returned and leaned nonchalantly against a tree, chewing a straw.

Accepting the point of view advanced by the chair, the miners decided that the two thieves should be whipped and banished from camp. A strong feeling prevailed that any man who, in this age of plenty, would descend to petty thieving, was a poor, miserable creature to be pitied. Some charitably inclined individual actually took up a small collection which was presented to the thieves after they had received their punishment.

"And now, vamos, git!" advised Semple. "And spread the glad tidings. We'll do the same by any more of you. Well, Jim?" he inquired of the sheriff.

Jim shifted his straw from the right corner of his mouth to the left.

"That outfit don't eject worth a cuss," said he laconically.

"How many of them is there?" asked Semple.

"Two—and a shotgun," stated Jim.

"I reckon we'll eject them if we say 'eject'!" cried some one truculently; and several others growled assent.

Jim cast a humorous eye in that direction.

"Oh, I reckon I'm ekal to the job," said he, "and if you say 'eject' again, why out they go. Only when I looked that outfit over, and saw they was only two of them and six of these jabbering keskydees, why, I jest nat'rally wondered whether it was by and according to the peace and dignity of this camp to mix up in that kind of a muss. I should think they ought to be capable of doin' their own ejecting."

A discussion arose on this point. The sentiment seemed unanimous that the Frenchmen ought to have been able to protect themselves, but was divided on the opinion as to how far the camp was now committed to action.

"They'll think they've bluffed us out, if we drop her now," argued one side.

"It ought not to be the policy of this camp to mix up with private quarrels," argued the other.

John Semple decided the question.

"It looks like we're in the hole," he admitted, "and have got to do something. Now, I tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to have Jim here give these keskydees blank warrants that they can serve themselves, and to suit themselves."

This ingenious solution was very highly commended.

"Unless somebody else has something to bring up, I guess that's about all," announced Semple.

"No inquests?" some one asked.

"Nary an inquest. This camp is gettin' healthy. Adjourned!" And the meeting was brought to a formal conclusion by a tap of the pistol on the empty barrel.



CHAPTER XIX

SUNDAY AT HANGMAN'S GULCH

It was now about four o'clock. The crowd dispersed slowly in different directions, and to its different occupations and amusements. We wandered about, all eyes and ears. As yet we had not many acquaintances, and could not enter into the intimate bantering life of the old-timers. There was enough to interest us, however. A good many were beginning to show the drink. After a long period of hard labour even the most respectable of the miners would have at times strange reactions. That is another tale, however; and on this Sunday the drinking was productive only of considerable noise and boasting. Two old codgers, head to head, were bragging laboriously of their prowess as cooks. A small but interested group egged them on.

"Flapjacks?" enunciated one laboriously; "flapjacks? Why, my fren', you don't know nothin' about flapjacks. I grant you," said he, laying one hand on the other's arm, "I grant ye that maybe, maybe, mind you, you may know about mixin' flapjacks, and even about cookin' flapjacks. But wha' do you know about flippin' flapjacks?" He removed his hand from the other's arm. "Nawthin!" said he. "Now I am an exper'; a real exper'! When I want to flip a flapjack I just whirl her up through the chimney and catch her by holdin' the frying pan out'n the window!"

I found at another point a slender, beardless young chap, with bright black eyes, and hectic cheeks, engaged in sketching one of the miners who posed before him. His touch was swift and sure, and his faculty at catching a likeness remarkable. The sketch was completed and paid for in ten minutes; and he was immediately besieged by offers from men who wanted pictures of themselves or their camps. He told me, between strokes of the pencil, that he found this sort of thing more remunerative than the mining for which he had come to the country, as he could not stand the necessary hard work. Paper cost him two dollars and a half a sheet; but that was about all his expense. Alongside the street a very red-faced, bulbous-nosed and ancient ruin with a patriarchal white beard was preparing to give phrenological readings. I had seen him earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter. Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a moment's hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through the group and sat down on the edge of the boxes.

In the earlier and soberer part of the afternoon the phrenologist had skilfully steered his way by the safe stars of flattery. Now, as he ran his hands uncertainly through the miner's thick hair, a look of mystification crept into his bleary eyes. He felt again more carefully.

"Most 'xtraor'nary!" he muttered. "Fren's," said he, still feeling at the man's head, "this person has the most extraor'nary bump of 'quisitiveness. Never felt one like it, 'xcept on th' cranium of a very celebrated thief an' robber. His bump of benev'lence 's a reg'lar hole. Bump of truthfulness don' somehow seem to be there at all. Bump of cowardice is 's big 's an egg. This man, fren's," said he, dropping the victim's head and advancing impressively, "is a very dangerous character. Look out for 'm. He's a liar, an' a thief, an' a coward, an' a——"

"Well, you old son of a gun!" howled the miner, rising to his feet.

He seized the aged phrenologist, and flung him bodily straight through the sides of a large tent, and immediately dove after him in pursuit. There came from that tent a series of crashes, howls of rage and joy, the sounds of violent scuffling, and then there burst out through the doorway the thoroughly sobered phrenologist, his white beard streaming over one shoulder, his pop eyes bulging out, his bulbous nose quite purple, pursued by the angry miner and a score of the overjoyed populace interrupted in their gambling. Everybody but the two principals was gasping with laughter. It looked as though the miner might do his victim a serious injury, so I caught the pursuer, around the shoulders and held him fast. He struggled violently, but was no match for my bulk, and I restrained him until he had cooled down somewhat, and had ceased trying to bite and kick me. Then all at once he laughed, and I released him. Of the phrenologist nothing remained but a thin cloud of dust hanging in the still air.

Yank and I then thought of going back to camp, and began to look around after Johnny, who had disappeared, when McNally rolled up, inviting us to sup with him.

"You don't want to go home yet," he advised us. "Evening's the time to have fun. Never mind your friend; he's all right. Now you realize the disadvantage of living way off where you do. My hang-out is just down the street. Let's have a drink."

We accepted both his invitations. Then, after the supper, pipes alight, we sauntered down the street, a vast leisure expanding our horizons. At the street corner stood a tall, poetic-looking man, with dreamer's eyes, a violin clasped under his chin. He was looking straight past us all out into the dusk of the piney mountains beyond, his soul in the music he was producing. They were simple melodies, full of sentiment, and he played as though he loved them. Within the sound of his bow a dead silence reigned. Men stood with eyes cast down, their faces sobered, their eyes adream. One burly, reckless, red-faced individual, who had been bullying it up and down the street, broke into a sob which he violently suppressed, and then looked about fiercely, as though challenging any one to have heard. The player finished, tucked his violin and bow under his arm, and turned away. For a moment the crowd remained motionless, then slowly dispersed. This was John Kelly, a famous wandering minstrel of the camps, a strange, shy, poetic man, who never lacked for dust nor for friends, and who apparently sought for neither.

Under the softening influence of the music the crowd led a better life for about ten minutes.

We entered the gambling rooms, of which there were two, and had a drink of what McNally called "42 calibre whiskey" at the bar of each. In one of them we found Johnny, rather flushed, bucking a faro bank. Yank suggested that he join us, but he shook his head impatiently, and we moved on. In a tremendous tent made by joining three or four ordinary tents together, a very lively fiddle and concertina were in full blast. We entered and were pounced upon by a boisterous group of laughing men, seized by the shoulders, whirled about, and examined from behind.

"Two gentlemen and a lady!" roared out one of them. "Gentlemen on that side; ladies on this. See-lect your pardners for the waltz!"

There was a great rushing to and fro in preparation. Men bowed to each other with burlesque dancing school formality, offered arms, or accepted them with bearlike coyness. We stood for a moment rather bewildered, not knowing precisely what to do.

"You belong over that side," McNally instructed us. "I go over here; I'm a 'lady.'"

"Why?" I asked.

"Ladies," explained McNally, "are those who have patches on the seats of their pants."

As in most social gatherings, we saw that here too the fair sex were in the majority.

Everybody danced very vigorously, with a tremendous amount of stamping. It seemed a strenuous occupation after a week of hard work, and yet it was great fun. Yank pirouetted and balanced and "sasshayed" and tom-fooled in a manner wonderful to behold. We ended flushed and uproarious; and all trooped to the bar, which, it seemed, was the real reason for the existence of this dance hall.

The crowd was rough and good natured, full of high spirits, and inclined to practical jokes of a pretty stiff character. Of course there was the inevitable bully, swaggering fiercely and truculently back and forth, his belt full of weapons. Nobody took him very seriously; but, on the other hand, everybody seemed to take mighty good care not to run definitely counter to him. In the course of his wanderings he came to our end of the bar, and jostled McNally aside. McNally was at the moment lighting his pipe, so that in his one hand he held a burning match and in the other a glass of whiskey. Without the slightest hurry or excitement, his blue eyes twinkling as humorously as ever, McNally dumped the whiskey over the bully's shock head with his left hand and touched the match to it with his right. The alcohol sizzled up in a momentary blue flame, without damage save for a very singed head of hair.

"Man on fire! Man on fire!" yelled McNally. "Put him out!"

The miners rose to the occasion joyously, and "put him out" in the most literal fashion; so that no more was seen of that bully.

About ten o'clock we were getting tired; and probably the reaction from the "42 calibre whiskey" was making us drowsy. We hunted up Johnny, still at his faro game; but he positively and impatiently declined to accompany us. He said he was ahead—or behind—I forget which. I notice both conditions have the same effect of keeping a man from quitting. We therefore left him, and wandered home through the soft night, wherein were twinkling stars, gentle breezes, little voices, and the silhouettes of great trees.



CHAPTER XX

THE GOLD WASHERS

Johnny did not return at all that night, but showed up next morning at the diggings, looking blear-eyed and sleepy. He told us he had slept with a friend, and replied rather curtly that he was a "little behind the game." I believe myself that he was cleaned out; but that was none of our business. Every night we divided the dust into five parts. Don Gaspar and Vasquez got two of these. The remainder we again divided into four. I took charge of Talbot's share. We carried the dust always with us; for the camp was no longer safe from thieves.

In order to effect this division we had to have some sort of scales. I went up to the single store to see what I could do. The storekeeper was a drawling, slow, down-east Yankee, perpetually chewing a long sliver or straw, talking exclusively through his nose, keen for a bargain, grasping of the last cent in a trade, and yet singularly interesting and agreeable. His sense of dry humour had a good deal to do with this. He had no gold scales to lend or to hire, but he had some to sell. The price was fifteen dollars for an ordinary pair of balances worth not over a dollar and a half.

"And you'll find that cheap, if the miners keep coming in as fast as they do," said he. "In two weeks they'll be worth fifty."

We bought them, and obtained from them great satisfaction. Vasquez used to weigh his gold at night, and again in the morning, in hopes, I suppose, that it had bred overnight.

Certainly the storekeeper's statement as to the influx of miners was justified. They came every day, in droves. We began to feel quite like old-timers, and looked with infinite scorn on these greenhorns. They were worse than we had been; for I have seen them trying to work in the moonlight! The diggings were actually getting crowded.

It was no longer feasible to dig wherever we pleased to do so. We held many miners' meetings, adopting regulations. A claim was to be fifteen feet square; work must begin on it within ten days; and so forth. Each of the five members of our party staked out two claims each, on which we worked in turn. All the old-timers respected these regulations, but some of the newcomers seemed inclined to dispute them; so that many meetings and much wrangling ensued. The truth of the matter was that none of us had the slightest permanent interest in the place. We intended merely to make our piles and to decamp. Each was for himself. Therefore there was no solidarity. We regulated only when we were actually forced to it; so that with what we called "private affairs" we declined to interfere. A man could commit any crime in the decalogue if so it pleased him. His victims must protect themselves. Such things as horse stealing, grand larceny, claim jumping, and mining regulations we dealt with; but other things were not our affair. We were too busy, and too slightly interested in what little public welfare a temporary mining camp might have. Even when, in a few cases, turbulence resulted in shooting, we rarely punished; although, strangely enough, our innate Anglo-Saxon feeling for the formality of government always resulted in a Sunday "inquest." We deliberated solemnly. The verdict was almost invariably "justifiable self-defence," which was probably near enough, for most of these killings were the result of quarrels. Murders for the purpose of robbery, later so frequent, were as yet almost unknown. Twice, however, and in both instances the prisoner was one of the gamblers, we pronounced judgment. One of these men was banished, and the other hanged. All in all a very fair semblance of order was kept; but I cannot help now but feel that our early shirking of responsibility—which was typical of all California—made necessary later great upheavals of popular justice.

About this time, also, the first of the overland wagon trains began to come through. Hangman's Gulch was not on the direct route; but some enterprising individual had found our trail fairly practicable for wagons and ten miles shorter than the regular road. After that many followed, and soon we had a well-cleared road. They showed plainly the hardships of a long journey, for the majority of them were thin, sick looking and discouraged. Few of them stopped at the diggings, although most had come west in hopes of gold, but pushed on down to the pastures of the Sacramento. They were about worn out and needed to recuperate before beginning anything new. Some were out of provisions and practically starved. The Yankee storekeeper sold food at terrible rates. I remember that quinine—a drug much in demand—cost a dollar a grain! We used to look up from our diggings at the procession of these sad-faced, lean men walking by their emaciated cattle, and the women peering from the wagons, and be very thankful that we had decided against the much-touted overland route.

One day, however, an outfit went through of quite a different character. We were apprised of its approach by a hunter named Bagsby. He loped down the trail to the river level very much in a hurry.

"Boys!" he shouted, "quit work! Come see what's coming down the trail!" with which he charged back again up the hill.

His great excitement impressed us, for Bagsby, like most of the old-time Rocky Mountain men, was not ordinarily what one would call an emotional individual. Therefore we dropped our tools and surged up the hill as fast as we could go. I think we suspected Indians.

A train of three wagons drawn by strong oxen was lurching slowly down the road. It differed little from others of its kind, save that the cattle were in better shape and the men walking alongside, of the tall, competent backwoodsman type, seemed well and hearty. But perhaps a hundred yards ahead of the leading wagon came a horse—the only horse in the outfit—and on it, riding side-saddle, was a girl. She was a very pretty, red-cheeked girl, and she must have stopped within a half mile or so of the camp in order to get herself up for this impressive entrance. Her dress was of blue calico with a white yoke and heavy flounces or panniers; around her neck was a black velvet ribbon; on her head was a big leghorn hat with red roses. She rode through the town, her head high, like a princess; and we all cheered her like mad. Not once did she look at us; but I could see her bosom heaving with excitement beneath her calico, and her nostrils wide. She was a remarkably pretty girl; and this was certainly the moment of her triumph.