"Evidently we have to do with a very cunning gang of rascals," remarked Mr. Adams, as with the burro they hastened back for the levee and their baggage. "How did they know enough to trade on your name, Grigsby?"
Mr. Grigsby smiled grimly.
"They probably saw I was a Frémont man—may have heard us talking; and they took the chance. Naturally enough they'd guess that I knew the captain. All we early Americans in California knew him, and he stood ready to help us out. Well, sir, they left a clue, at any rate. We'll follow as fast as we can."
"Do you think we'll catch them?" asked Charley, eagerly.
"We'll do our best, whether we catch 'em or not," answered the Frémonter. "It's a big country, up yonder in the mountains, as they'll find out. Now, I'm thinking that we can't do better than to take the trail up the south branch of the American, to the saw-mill, and see Jim Marshall. He's been living right in the middle of things and may know something we'll want to hear."
"You mean the Marshall who discovered this California gold, for Americans?" Charley's father. "Well, I'd certainly like to see him, and have Charley see him; and the place, too."
"All right. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone," answered the Frémonter. "And from the mill we can work north, to the other branch of the American."
The baggage was undisturbed, on the levee. Charley held the burro, and his father and Mr. Grigsby proceeded to pack her. Mr. Grigsby had stopped at a store, on their way, and bought two crowbars, a new rope and a pack-saddle, and some dried-beef. The crowbars cost $1.50 each, the rope cost $5, and the pack-saddle, of oak and and shaped like two letter X's fastened together by the middle, cost $8. The meat was the cheapest. It came in long strips, and sold by the yard—six yards for fifty cents!
The Frémonter was of course an expert at packing a horse or , and Mr. Adams knew considerable about it, from his army experience. Charley wondered at the neatness with which his comrades aboard all the variously shaped articles, and tied them fast so that they balanced.
"They call this the diamond hitch," Mr. Grigsby, as he hauled tight, while the little burro stood with ears . "Rope makes the shape of a diamond—see? But it's only the regular trappers' pack throw. I've used it a thousand times and more. Well, we're all ready; for the gold mines. Charley, you can lead the critter. I'll go ahead, to show the road."
"Hurrah for the gold mines!" echoed Charley; and away they .
As they left the hurly-burly of the embarcadero, and threaded their way through the town, which was like another San Francisco, nobody appeared to notice their march. It probably was an old story, and besides, the people were too busy running about, bargaining in real estate, making money quick.
The dust was floating high, from the many feet; and as the street became a road out of the town, the dust was thicker than ever, from parties on before. It lay brown and powdery, ankle-deep and hot to the boots. The sun blazed down fiercely. Leading the little burro, in his heavy clothing Charley soon was streaming with ; before, tramped with long stride the Frémonter, a rifle on shoulder; at the rear stanchly limped Mr. Adams, well with gun and pistol and the few articles that he and Mr. Grigsby had divided.
The burro's pack displayed crowbars and and picks and gold pans and camp equipage; and to Charley's mind the little procession looked very business-like.
After following the dusty road through a flat brown plain, in about a mile and a half they passed what Mr. Grigsby said was the famous Sutter's Fort. With its thick clay walls and square towers at the corners, pierced with loopholes, it did indeed look like a fort. Inside the walls were several clay buildings where the captain had lived and stored his goods and taught his Indians to do white man's work. He had his fort here in 1839, and had been given all the land about, by the Mexican government of California. But now the fort was ; the doors and windows had been broken in, most of the wood had been torn out and carried off, and the fields about had been used as pasturage by the gold seekers. No wonder that the captain felt ; and it was pretty hard on him, when really because of his saw-mill had gold been discovered. This was poor reward for having settled the country and built a saw-mill—and a flour mill besides.
"There's the Rio Americano," Mr. Grigsby, pointing ahead, after they had passed old Fort Sutter.
About a quarter of a mile before on the left, a line of trees indicated the course of a river—the American. And a fine stream it proved to be, flowing clear and sparkling between wooded banks. The road, still dusty, turned slightly, and along the river, making toward the rolling brown foothills which in the blue distance, with the snow-crests of the Sierra Nevada range glinting beyond them.
In the shallows and on the bars of the American parties of miners were at work digging away with spades and picks, and to wash out the gold in their pans. They all were so busy that they seemed to note nothing on either side of them or overhead. Their eyes were glued to the sand and the holes and the pans. Other parties had halted by the way, for rest in the shade of trees; and these hailed the Adams party with the usual calls: "How far to the diggin's, strangers?" "This is the American, ain't it?" "Say! How much do you s'pose a man can dig in a day, up there?" "Where you folks from, and where you bound?" "Is it always this hot in Californy?" And so , and so forth.
Several parties on their way back to Sacramento also were met; they were brown and hairy and rough and , and some of them limped weakly as if they could scarcely carry their weapons, picks, spades, crowbars and blanket-rolls. They all were received with a perfect volley of excited from the resting parties—to which they replied with wave of hand and sometimes with a flourish of a fat little sack.
But Mr. Grigsby paused not for the gold seekers in the river, or under the trees, or on the way down. He tramped , with his long stride; Charley just as stoutly followed behind, leading the packed burro, and at the tail of the burro strode, a little , the tall and soldierly Mr. Adams.
The dusty road continued through the wide rolling plain which formed the east half of the great Valley of the Sacramento. The herbage was short and brown, except at the of the streams, and the hot landscape was broken by occasional large spreading trees, singly and in . As the foothills gradually drew nearer, the number of miners became greater. Finally, at sunset, Mr. Grigsby halted at a grassy hollow, near the American, where there was a considerable camp of men, and even two women. A rude sign announced the title "Woodchuck's Delight."
"We'll camp, too, I reckon," he quoth, dropping his pack; and Charley was glad to hear the words. "How are you?" greeted Mr. Grigsby to the nearest miners, as he turned to the burro.
"Howdy, strangers? Where you from and where you going?"
"Just coming in, or have you made one pile?"
"That's a burro, ain't it? Will you sell him?"
"What might your names be, strangers?"
To these and other queries Mr. Grigsby answered good-naturedly, as he and Mr. Adams stripped the little burro. The camp consisted of a few tents and of men who merely had thrown their blankets down here and there, as if to cook their suppers and rest till morning. The great majority had come afoot, many without even pack animals; a sprinkling of horses and were staked out, at pasture; and speedily Mr. Grigsby led the burro aside, to stake him out, too. He laid back his ears, stretched out his shaggy head, and made short runs at the other animals near him, until he had cleared a grazing spot all his own. Then he hee-hawed , and lay down for a roll.
Mr. Adams and Charley tossed the bedding to a place which appeared as good as any other, for sleeping, and got out the "grub" and cooking .
"Charley, you're expected to supply the wood and water, and help me with the camp chores generally," directed his father. "We'll let Grigsby do the hunting and camp locating and burro tending, and I'll cook and wash dishes. That will be our regular system. How about it, Grigsby?"
"Sounds like a pretty good arrangement," agreed the Frémonter, . "But I'm willing to chip in wherever necessary."
"Get some wood, Charley," bade Mr. Adams. "That's first. There's the ." And he proceeded to sort out the food, while Mr. Grigsby busied himself with the bedding.
Charley seized the axe from amidst other tools, and lustily chopped wood from a tree which already had been half by other campers. In fact, it looked as though very soon no trees would be left, along this trail; which was a great pity.
Having brought enough wood, he took an iron kettle and trudged to the river. Several miners were at work, along the banks, and on a bar in the middle; one was working right where Charley arrived—a low place, like a miniature gully, where the soil was bare and sandy clay. He had dug a small , and was shoveling some of the loose dirt into his gold pan.
Charley could not help but watch, for a moment.
"Are you getting anything?" he ventured.
The man appeared to be a rough fellow, unshaven and tanned red, in faded blue shirt, old trousers belted with a leather , and bare feet. But when he smiled, and pausing a second, answered, he spoke in a pleasant voice, with as good language as from Charley's father or any other cultured person.
"Oh, a few pinches. See——?" and he his pan level full of water, until the water and much of the dirt had flowed out over the edges. He did this again—picked out a number of and large particles of dirt—swirled once more, and the pan, almost empty, for Charley to see.
Hurrah! Sure enough, there was a thin seam of yellow, lying in the angle of sides and bottom! And breaking it, was a small irregular particle, of blackish with the yellow in spots. Charley's eyes . Gold! Was this the way they did it?
The man picked out the small lump, and turned it in his fingers.
"One little nugget. Worth probably twenty dollars," he remarked. "The rest of the pans—these are two pans washed out—average about twelve cents." Then, at sight of Charley's excited face, he laughed . "You look as though you had the gold fever, boy, and had it bad," he said. "But these pans are nothing. They wouldn't sum up more than four dollars a day—and nobody in California would work long for four dollars a day. It's too low down on the river to pan out real wages. I'm just amusing myself. Got a pan? Come in and try your luck. The ground's free."
"I can't, now," Charley. "I'm getting water for supper. Maybe I can later, though. Will you be here after a while?"
"Oh, as like as not," answered the man, calmly scraping out the yellow stuff with the point of his knife, and dropping it into the usual brown buckskin sack—which, Charley , bulged a little at the bottom. "I used to be a preacher; now I seem to be a miner. What's your name and where'd you come from and where are you going, as the fashion of asking questions is."
Charley told him ............