knew, may have been hundreds of feet deep. At the top of the mountain we were on the crest of the Sierra Nevada Range, and it was a great relief to start down hill. One of the men went forward and picked out a route and twelve miles down the mountain we came to Rock Creek. Beyond this we encountered a descent which was almost as abrupt as our descent into Bear River Valley, but in the present place, we had plenty of timber, so we cut large trees and tied them by chains to the rear of the wagons and allowed them to drag behind. This put a very effective brake upon the wagons and enabled them to go down safely.
I remember an occurrence which took place shortly before we made this descent. Our road led along the edge of a steep declivity which seemed to be a thousand feet above the valley below. Mitch Hulett and I found it great sport to roll rocks off this precipice and watch them bound away down along the mountain-side. Sometimes we would pry a rock loose that would weigh two or three tons and watch it plunge down, tearing through the timber with frightful noise, scaring grouse, pheasants and wild animals out of the brush in great numbers. Some of the huge rocks would occasionally strike a jutting portion of the mountain and bound a hundred yards downward without striking a single obstruction. We had not noticed the lapse of time and the train got far ahead of us. By and by, we heard a great noise to the rear and in another moment a band of Indians dashed around a curve in the road and were right upon us. There was nothing we could do but run. The road ahead was down hill, and I have always thought we made a pretty good job of it. We broke away at full speed, never stopping to look back, and expecting every moment to feel the arrows in our backs or to see or hear them whiz past us. Every step gave us hope, and after a long run and when completely exhausted, we ventured to halt and look and listen, we discovered that we were not being followed at all. The Indians must have been greatly amused at our fright, but we were still unwilling to take chances and made the best haste we could to overtake the wagons. It required more than two hours, so rapidly had the time passed in our sport. That was the last time our pranks ever induced us to let the teams get so far ahead.
A place which afterwards came to be called Leake Springs is the next point I remember. We camped there for the night and on subsequent journeys I grew familiar with it. Twenty miles beyond this we came to Grass Valley and emerged from the high mountains. Fifteen miles farther we came to Weaver Creek, August 12th, 1849, where we first saw the gold glitter.
We thought our train was first over the trail, but somehow a few had beaten us in. When we got down to Weaver Creek, three emigrants were at work panning out the gold. We stopped and camped and watched them for a long time. That night I was taken sick with the flux. It was a bad place to be sick and I was dreadfully sick, too. They fixed me sort of a pallet under the shade of a big tree, and I lay there night and day for a week and they didn't know whether I would live or die. Trains were constantly arriving and in one of them there was a doctor. He came down to see me and told the boys they must hunt up a cow and give me fresh warm milk. They told me afterwards they found a train in which somebody had foresight enough to bring a cow along, and they got the milk and brought it to me. I drank it and soon recovered.
CHAPTER III.
Gold Mining in '49 and '50.
At last we were in California. I had a rather bitter introduction, but I soon felt well again and began to look about to see what California was really like and to learn the truth of all the wonderful stories I had heard about gold. We didn't want to take up claims immediately—wanted to look about and get the best location possible. They told us about Sacramento City being down the river and we decided to go down there. Weaver Creek was a small tributary of the American River, so we went down to the main stream and moved on down in the direction of Sacramento City. We met a man who said he had just been down there. We asked him how far it was, and he said forty miles. Said it was at the mouth of the American River, that is, where the American River flowed into the Sacramento River. In two days we reached the mouth of the river, but we didn't see any city. I saw a few tents, and there was an old sail boat anchored on Sacramento River up close to the bank, but that was all. I asked a man where Sacramento City was. He said, "This is the place."
We didn't expect to find much of a city, but were hardly prepared for what we found. We stretched our tent, turned our cattle out to graze and prepared for a rest. It was a delightful place. I never saw finer grass nor finer water, and we still had plenty to eat. Toward the close of the day I went down to where the sail boat was being unloaded. Four or five men were carrying provisions—flour, bacon, pickled pork, sugar, coffee, rice—in fact everything substantial to eat, out of the boat and throwing it upon the bank among the grape vines. I saw no owner. There were no police and nobody seemed to be afraid of thieves. They were not afraid either of rain, for none could be expected at that season of the year. Nor was there even any dew. Everything seemed to be safe both day and night.
Our lean old cattle fattened fast and in a little while we could hardly recognize them. It was a joy to see them eat and drink and rest after the hardships they had endured. The poor things had suffered even more than the men.
About the first of September we started back to the mines. Twenty miles up the American River we each took up a claim and went to work. Everything was placer mining. Each man had his pan and with it and the water of the river, he washed the gravel away from the loose gold. We worked there several weeks and so far as we could see, exhausted the gold that was in our claims. We found on estimating the result of our work that each man had averaged about sixteen dollars a day for every day he had worked.
About the time our claims were exhausted, we were surprised to meet Russell Hill, a cousin of mine, who had worked his way down from Oregon to Sacramento by way of Shasta City, and learning at Sacramento that we were up the American River, had come on up to see us. He had left his home in Iowa the year before and had gone to Oregon. He told us he had stopped a few days at Shasta City and believed it to be a better mining place than the American River, and urged us to go there. Accordingly we yoked up our oxen and packed our belongings into the wagons again and started. When we reached Sacramento City this time, it was not necessary to ask where the city was. The whole valley was covered with tents and lunch stands. There must have been several thousand people there. They had come in from everywhere, off the plains by caravan, up the river from San Francisco by boat, and from every other place in the world, it seemed to me. There were as yet no houses. People, men mostly, lived in tents and the lunch counters consisted of the sideboards of the wagons laid upon poles supported by forks driven in the ground. Meals were a uniform price, $1.00, but lodging was free. Just spread your blanket down on the grass anywhere and make yourself at home.
Shasta City is two hundred miles up Sacramento River and a little northwest of Sacramento City. Knight's Landing, near the mouth of Feather River, was our first stop of any consequence. We went up Feather River to where Marysville now stands and thence in a northwesterly direction back into the Sacramento Valley. This valley is about an average of twenty-five miles in width and at that time there were no towns or even camps upon it and consequently I can give little account of our progress. I only recall that about every twenty miles we came upon a ranch occupied by a few families of Spaniards. These Spaniards had made slaves of the Digger Indians who lived in mounds or huts covered with earth. The Indians raised wheat and gathered it in cane baskets. They then rubbed the wheat out of the straw and beat it into flour. These Indians went almost naked and lived, themselves, on salmon, acorns, grapes and grasshoppers. They were the most disgusting mortals I have ever seen in my life. When we passed the huts or mounds in which they lived, the pappooses would dart back into them exactly like prairie dogs. I asked an old Spaniard why he kept these filthy Indians around him, and he said they protected him from the wild Indians.
The whole valley was covered by abundant vegetation and was full of wild herds of Spanish horses and thousands of wild Spanish cattle. It was also full of many savage wild animals, grizzly, brown and black
