ocation along the headwaters of the
rivers flowing through California. They toiled amid the snows and storms
of the Sierras, facing perils from the Indians, savage beasts, and the
weather, for pay that often did not amount to the wages received by an
ordinary day laborer.

Little did those men suspect they were walking, sleeping, and toiling
over a treasure bed; that instead of tramping through snow and over ice
and facing the arctic blasts and vengeful red men, if they had dug into
the ground, they would have found wealth beyond estimate.

The priests lived in the adobe haciendas that the Spanish had erected
centuries before, and, as they counted their beads and dozed in calm
happiness, they became rich in flocks and the tributes received from the
simple-minded red men. Sometimes they wondered in a mild way at the
golden trinkets and ornaments brought in by the Indians and were puzzled
to know where they came from, but it seemed never to have occurred to
the good men that they could obtain the same precious metal by using the
pick and shovel. The years came and passed, and red men and white men
continued to walk over California without dreaming of the immeasurable
riches that had been nestling for ages under their feet.

[Illustration: GOLD WASHING--THE SLUICE.]

One day in February, 1848, James W. Marshall, who had come to California
from New Jersey some years before, and had been doing only moderately
well with such odd jobs as he could pick up, was working with a
companion at building a sawmill for Colonel John A. Sutter, who had
immigrated to this country from Baden in 1834. Going westward, he
founded a settlement on the present site of Sacramento in 1841. He built
Fort Sutter on the Sacramento, where he was visited by Fremont on his
exploring expedition in 1846.

Marshall and his companion were engaged in deepening the mill-race, the
former being just in front of the other. Happening to look around, he
asked:

"What is that shining near your boot?"

His friend reached his hand down into the clear water and picked up a
bright, yellow fragment and held it between his fingers.

"It is brass," he said; "but how bright it is!"

"It can't be brass," replied Marshall, "for there isn't a piece of brass
within fifty miles of us."

The other turned it over again and again in his hand, put it in his
mouth and bit it, and then held it up once more to the light. Suddenly
he exclaimed:

"I believe it's gold!"

"