ot spoken to
a single person about it. We agreed," said the Captain, smiling, "not
to mention the circumstance to any one, and arranged to set off early
the next day for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we
poked the sand about in various places, and before long succeeded in
collecting between us more than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good
deal of sand. I stayed at Mr. Marshall's that night, and the next day
we proceeded some little distance up the South Fork, and found that
gold existed along the whole course, not only in the bed of the main
stream, where the water had subsided, but in every little dried-up
creek and ravine. Indeed I think it is more plentiful in these latter
places, for I myself, with nothing more than a small knife, picked out
from a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold
which weighed nearly an ounce and a half.

"On our return to the mill, we were astonished by the work-people
coming up to us in a body, and showing us small flakes of gold similar
to those we had ourselves procured. Marshall tried to laugh the matter
off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only
some shining mineral of trifling value; but one of the Indians, who had
worked at the gold mine in the neighbourhood of La Paz, in Lower
California, cried out, 'Oro! oro!' We were disappointed enough at this
discovery, and supposed that the work-people had been watching our
movements, although we thought we had taken every precaution against
being observed by them. I heard afterwards, that one of them, a sly
Kentuckian, had dogged us about, and that, looking on the ground to see
if he could discover what we were in search of, he had lighted on some
flakes of gold himself.

"The next day I rode back to the Fort, organised a labouring party, set
the carpenters to work on a few necessary matters, and the next day
accompanied them to a point of the Fork, where they encamped for the
night. By the following morning I had a party of fifty Indians fairly
at work. The way we first managed was to shovel the soil into small
buckets, or into some of our famous Indian baskets; then wash all the
light earth out, and pick away the stones; after this, we dried the
sand on pieces of canvas, and with long reeds blew away all but the
gold. I have now some rude machines in use, and upwards of one hundred
men employed, chiefly Indians, who are well fed, and who are allowed
whisky three times a-da