daughter,
Mrs. Quinby, and son Charles, all lived in San Jose and are now dead.
H.C. Skinner was a brother-in-law of Moody and also lived a long time in
San Jose, but himself, son and one daughter, are now dead.

Rogers and I now took the pack-saddle we had borrowed of Mr. French to
use on our trip to Death Valley and return, and carried it to the saloon
on the east side of the plaza, where we were to place it if we got back
safely, and delivered it to the man in charge, with many thanks to Mr.
French for his favors to us, and sent him word that we would always
remember him and be ready to do him a similar or equal favor if ever we
were able. We considered him a good benevolent man, and such he proved
to be when he offered us fat oxen, good beans, and any other thing we
needed. He told the people in the house who we were, which no doubt
influenced them kindly in our favor when we arrived.

At the saloon there was a large room with tables in it and gambling
going on actively. Money changed hands very rapidly, drinks at the bar
were frequent, and the whole affair moved forward with the same
regularity as any mercantile business. The door stood wide open and any
one could come and go at his pleasure. Quite a number of black-eyed,
fair looking women circulated among the crowd, and this, to us, seemed
quite out of place, for we had never seen women in saloons before. We
watched the game awhile to see some losing and some gaining, the result
being quite exciting; but as neither of us had any money, we could not
have joined in the game had we been so disposed; so we looked on awhile
and then took a seat on the ground outside of the house.

Here we talked over our chances of getting to the mines. All the clothes
we had were on our backs and feet and those were the poorest of the
poor. We had no money. I had the little black-eyed mule, and Rogers had
the watch Arcane had given him. Mr. Moody had said it was 500 miles to
San Francisco, and 150 miles further to the mines, so that after the
hard travel of a year we were still a long way off from the place we
started for.

We could not see any way to make a living here. There was no land
cultivated, not a fence, nothing to require labor of any kind. The
valley was rich enough and produced great crops of grass, and the cattle
and horses we had seen grazing seemed to be about all the use they put
it to. It looked as if the people must live principally on meat. I
thought if we coul