goners to death; but the lure of the game and the
profits at the end kept the business thriving. Huge stocks of cottons,
glass, hardware, and ammunition were drawn almost across the continent
to be exchanged at Santa Fe for furs, Indian blankets, silver, and
mules; and many a fortune was made out of the traffic.

_Americans in California._--Why stop at Santa Fe? The question did not
long remain unanswered. In 1829, Ewing Young broke the path to Los
Angeles. Thirteen years later Fremont made the first of his celebrated
expeditions across plain, desert, and mountain, arousing the interest of
the entire country in the Far West. In the wake of the pathfinders went
adventurers, settlers, and artisans. By 1847, more than one-fifth of the
inhabitants in the little post of two thousand on San Francisco Bay were
from the United States. The Mexican War, therefore, was not the
beginning but the end of the American conquest of California--a conquest
initiated by Americans who went to till the soil, to trade, or to follow
some mechanical pursuit.

_The Discovery of Gold._--As if to clinch the hold on California already
secured by the friends of free soil, there came in 1848 the sudden
discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in the Sacramento Valley. When this
exciting news reached the East, a mighty rush began to California, over
the trails, across the Isthmus of Panama, and around Cape Horn. Before
two years had passed, it is estimated that a hundred thousand people, in
search of fortunes, had arrived in California--mechanics, teachers,
doctors, lawyers, farmers, miners, and laborers from the four corners of
the earth.

[Illustration: _From an old print_

SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849]

_California a Free State._--With this increase in population there
naturally resulted the usual demand for admission to the union. Instead
of waiting for authority from Washington, the Californians held a
convention in 1849 and framed their constitution. With impatience, the
delegates brushed aside the plea that "the balance of power between the
North and South" required the admission of their state as a slave
commonwealth. Without a dissenting voice, they voted in favor of freedom
and boldly made their request for inclusion among the United States.
President Taylor, though a Southern man, advised Congress to admit the
applicant. Robert Toombs of Georgia vowed to God that he preferred
secession. Henry Clay, the great compromiser, came to the rescue and in