r's Fort, and informing his employer, in
a mysterious way, that he has found gold. Sutter goes to the mill the
next day, and Marshall is impatiently waiting for him. More water
is turned on, and the race is ploughed deeper, and more nuggets are
brought to light. It is a day of supreme joy. The excitement is great.
Even the waters of the American River seem to "clap their hands" and
the trees of the wood wave their tops in homage and rejoice. At the
foot of the Sierras is the hidden treasure, which will thrill the
civilised world when it hears the tidings with a new joy, which will
bring delight beyond measure to thousands of adventurers, which will
enrich some beyond their wildest dreams, and which will prove the ruin
of many an one, wrecking, alas! both soul and body. Sutler's plan was
to keep the wonderful discovery a secret, but this was impossible.
Even the very birds of the air would carry the news afar to the coast
in their songs; the waters of mountain streams running down to the
Sacramento River and on to San Francisco Bay and out to the Pacific
Ocean through the Golden Gate would bear the report north and south to
all the cities and towns, to Central and South America, to China and
Japan, to Europe and more distant lands; and the wings of the wind
would serve as couriers to waft the story across the Sierras and the
Rocky Mountains and the plains, till the whole world would be startled
and gladdened with the cry, Gold is found, gold in California! One of
the women of Sutler's household told the secret, which was too big to
be kept in hiding, to a teamster, and he, overjoyed, in turn told it
to Merchant Smith and Merchant Brannan of the Fort. The "secret" was
out in brief space, and like an eagle with outspread wings, it flew
away into all quarters of the globe. Poor Sutter, strange to say,
it ruined him. The gold seekers came from the ends of the earth and
"squatted" on his lands, and he spent all the fortune he had amassed
in trying to dispossess them. But his efforts were unavailing. The
laws, loosely administered then, seemed to be against him, and fate,
relentless fate, spared him not. Almost all that was left to him in
the end was the ring which he had made out of the lumps of the first
gold found, and on which was inscribed this legend: "The first gold
found in California, January, 1848." It tells a melancholy as well as
a joyous tale, in it are bound up histories and tragedies, in it the
happiness of multi