insert a
huge piece of meat in his mouth. "Grizzly bears? Well, there! _We've
lived among 'em!_"

"Is it possible?"

"Yes; I tracked a big grizzly in the Sierra Nevada for two days and then
I stopped."

"What made you stop?"

_"I concluded the bear tracks were getting a little too fresh!"_

CHAPTER XVIII.

A WANT SUPPLIED.

One thing attracted the notice and pleased our friends, and gave them a
hope of being able to supply a want they had felt every moment since
landing upon the California coast. Each of the miners had two rifles,
and were abundantly supplied with ammunition and mining tools. The
wonder was how they could carry so heavy a load for such a distance. It
could not be understood until Ned Trimble stated that they had two good,
tough mules pasturing in a secluded place about a half-mile distant.

"That 'ere Injin blanket you're carryin' is rather pretty!" remarked Ned
as he rubbed his greasy fingers through his hair.

"Yes, we got it of an Indian girl, and take great pride in it."

"You did, eh? What did you give her for it?"

"A gold watch."

"Ah! Well, if the watch was a first-rate one maybe she got her pay; but
what did she want with a watch? That's just the way with all women.
They'll give ten times the value for some little gewgaw to wear about
'em. I was engaged to a fine-looking girl in North Carolina, but I seen
she was getting so extravagant that I couldn't understand it, so I left
before it was too late."

"A very wise plan."

"Yes, she was very extravagant."

"In what respect?" asked Elwood, who was quite amused at their
newly-found friend.

"Well, you see, she would persist in wearing shoes on Sunday instead of
going barefoot like the rest of the young ladies. I warned her two or
three times, but I catched her at church one day with them on, and so I
went over to the house that night and told her I couldn't trust her any
longer, and we exchanged presents and parted."

"Exchanged presents?" laughed Wakeman. "What sort of presents were
they?"

"I wish no trifling insinuations, sir," replied Ned, with a
grandiloquent air. "She returned to me a tooth brush that I had
presented her some months before, and I gave back to her a tin button
that she had bought of a traveling peddler, and that I had been wearing
on Sundays for my breastpin. 'Tis not the intrinsic worth you know, but
the associations connected with such things that makes 'em dear. But it
is a painful subject