offer
quickly as I saw it was a good chance to build up my exhausted strength
and flesh.

I turned the little mule out in the hills near by, and began my work. It
was not hard, for the boarders were thinning out. The natives did not
patronize this hotel very much, but grub disappeared pretty fast at my
corner of the table, for my appetite began to be ravenous. There was not
much variety to the food and very few luxuries or delicacies, which were
hard to obtain on such a bare market, but all seemed satisfied with the
food, and to me it tasted extra good.

Rogers went back to the old camp and helped them there, and I often went
over after dark, when my work was done. Moody and Skinner had been
active in trying to get Mr. Bennett ready to go up the coast with them.
Bennett had sold his repeating rifle and with the proceeds and the help
of his friends had got another ox, making two yoke for him. They fixed
up a wagon for him, and yokes enough could be found where people had
traded off their oxen for horses. Provisions enough had been gathered by
Moody and Skinner for them all, and Rogers would go along with the party
to help them with the teams.

I was left alone after they started, and it was my idea to quit when I
had worked a month, and if my mule staid with me, to start for the mines
even if I went alone. The majority of the male inhabitants of this town
had gone to the mines, and this accounted for the unusual proportion of
women. We learned that they would return in November, and then the
gambling houses would start up in full blast, for these native
Californians seemed to have a great natural desire to indulge in games
of chance, and while playing their favorite game of monte would lay down
their last reale (12-1/2 cents) in the hope of winning the money in
sight before them on the table.

As the boarding house business got dull I was taken over to a vineyard
and set to work, in place of hauling water. The entire patch was as
green as a meadow with weeds, and I was expected to clean them out. I
inquired of Brier how he came to get hold of this nice property, and he
said that during the war the soldiers had taken possession of this piece
of ground, and had their camp here, so he considered it was government
land, and therefore had squatted on it and was going to hold it, and pay
for it as regular government land, and that he already considered it his
own, for said he, "I am an American, and this is a part of the