s, went back to Grass Valley and started a hotel, ran it a
few weeks, and the first thing I knew I was "busted."

It is now in the winter of '49 and '50 and I went to Sacramento again,
and from Sacramento to Beal's Bar on the North Fork of the American
River at the junction of the North and South Forks. By this time I had
gained my strength so that I was more like myself, and I bought a
rocker, pick, shovel and pan and went into the gulches for gold. I had
fairly good luck until spring. By this time I had laid by a few hundred
dollars, and I joined a company of thirty to turn the South Fork of the
American River into the North Fork, by so doing we expected to drain
about one-fourth of a mile of the bed of the South Fork. The banks of
the river were rich and everything went to show that the bed of the
river was very rich, and we went to work with great hopes of a big
harvest of gold. The first thing we did was to build a dam, and dig a
canal, which we accomplished in about four months. About this time snow
and rain came on in the mountains, raised the water in the river and
washed away part of our dam. It was now too late to build again that
season.

Now you see the hopes and disappointments of the miner. While we were at
work on the canal we had occasion to blast some boulders that were in
our way. We had a blacksmith to sharpen the picks and drills who had a
portable forge on the point of land between the two rivers. When we were
ready to blast the rock we gave him timely warning, he paid no heed, the
blast went off, and a portion of a boulder weighing about 500 pounds
went directly for his forge and within about six inches of his legs and
went on over into the North Fork. The man turned about and hollered to
the boys in the canal "I surrender."

About this time the river had risen to such an extent that it was
thought advisable to suspend operations until the next spring. This was
a dividing of the roads, and each member had to look out for himself. I
went to Mokelumne Hill, staked out some claims and went to work to sink
a shaft through the lava to bedrock. The lava on the surface is very
hard, but grows softer as you go down. While I was thus banging away
with my pick and not making much headway, there came along a Mr.
Ferguson from San Francisco, on a mule. He stopped and looked at me a
minute and then said, "Young man, how deep do you expect to go before
you reach bedrock?" I said, "About 65 or 75 feet." "Well,"