As for Jose, Don Luis's Indian servant, he was
devout in his expressions of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary and the
Great Spirit, whom he would insist upon classifying together, in a most
remarkable and not quite orthodox manner.

We now set to work to get up our tent. Malcolm, in the meantime,
prepared coffee and very under-baked cakes, made of the flour we had
brought with us. His cooking operations were greatly impeded by our
eagerness to dry the sand we had scraped up--a feat in the achievement
of which Bradley was clumsy enough to burn a hole in our very best
saucepan. However, we managed to get the moisture absorbed, and,
shutting our eyes, we commenced blowing away the sand with our mouths,
and shortly after found ourselves the possessors of a few pinch's of
gold. This was encouraging for a beginning. We drunk our coffee in high
spirits, and then, having picketted our horses, made ourselves as snug
as our accommodation would allow, and, being tired out, not only with
the journey and the work, but with excitement and anxiety, slept
soundly till morning.

CHAPTER IX.

Two horses stray away
How orders were enforced at the diggings
Sunday work
Nature of the soil
Inconveniences even in gold getting
Dinner and rest
A strike for higher wages
A walk through the diggings
Sleeping and smoking
Indians and finery
Californians and Yankee
Runaway sailors and stray negroes
A native born Kentuckian
"That's a fact"
A chapel at the diggings
A supper with an appetite.

The morning broke brilliantly, and the first thing we discovered on
rising was, that two of the horses had broken their fastenings during
the night, and strayed. As we could not afford to lose the animals,
Jose and Horry were despatched lo look after them, and they grumbled
not a little at being thus sent off from the scene of golden operations;
but Bradley, producing a rifle, swore that he would shoot them both
unless they obeyed orders; so, after a little altercation, away they
went.

Breakfast was soon despatched, and the question as to the day's
operations asked. Don Luis was the only one who, on the score of its
being Sunday, would not go to the diggings. He had no objection to
amuse himself on Sunday, but he would not work. To get over the
difficulty, we agreed to go upon the principle of every man keeping his
own findings, our bonds of unity as a party to extend merely to mutual
protection and defence. L