e day
previous. He said:

"I came to the place where you stayed last night, yesterday morning, and
was told that there were a number of bears in the neighborhood, and that
no one dared to hunt them. I remarked that that was my business, and I
would take a hand at it; I strapped on my revolvers and knife,
shouldered my Kentucky rifle and started out. I had not gone more than
half a mile, when I discovered one of the animals I was in search of,
and away my bullet sped striking him in the hip. I made for a tree and
he made for me! I won the race by stopping on the topmost branch, while
he howled at the base; while reloading my rifle I heard an answer to his
wailing for me or for his companion--it didn't matter which. Very soon
a second cry came from another direction, and still one more from the
third point of the compass. By this time one had reached the tree and I
fired killing him. Hastily reloading, I was just in time to fire as the
second one responded to the first one's howl; he fell dead; then the
third arrived and shared the same fate. Having allowed the first one to
live as a decoy, his turn came last; then I descended and looked over my
work--four full-grown bears lay dead at my feet."

To corroborate this statement I will say that I saw one of them on the
hooks in front of a butcher shop in Stockton, and the other three went
to San Francisco on the same boat that I did. I met the hunter on the
street about a week later and he told me that he realized seven hundred
dollars for his bears. I do not make the statement as a bear story, but
as a bare fact.

Life In the Mines.

The preceding pages were written about twenty years ago, and only
covered about one and one-half years after leaving the Green Mountains
of old Vermont. Since which time, I have experienced nearly all of the
vicissitudes of the State to the present time (1913). I will now attempt
to give an account of my stewardship from that time on. I date my
arrival in the State, Weaverville, about three miles below Hangtown (now
Placerville), September 10th, 1849. This was where I did my first
mining, which was not, much of a success, on account of my weak
condition caused by my having the so-called "land scurvy," brought on
from a want of vegetable food, and I left for Sacramento City where I
remained for a week or two and then left and went to Grass Valley. There
I made a little money, and went to Sacramento City and bought two wagon
loads of good