dn't have to poke around long afore Sutter was plumb
sure it was the real stuff. There was some of it in the Americanos,
but the gold was even thicker in the dried-up creeks an' gulches that
run into the river on both sides. With his penknife, Sutter pried out
o' the rock-face a piece o' gold weighin' nigh two ounces.

"Some o' the mill-hands had got wise, too. Maybe Wimmer talked--though
he said he hadn't. Maybe they just got a hunch, when they saw Sutter
an' Marshall prospectin' around. They started huntin', too, but the
flakes were small an' took a long time to find. None o' them knew
enough to try washin' the sand, an' all they found didn't amount to
much.

"Sutter took samples o' the gold to the fort at Monterey, where
General Mason was in command. Mason was more interested in tryin' to
keep the Apaches an' Comanches quiet than he was in fussin' about
metals. He was a soldier, an' minin' wasn't his line. But he knew that
the federal authorities at Washington ought to be notified.

"There weren't no post nor telegraph in them times--that was 'way
afore the days o' the Pony Express,[7] even--an' Mason sent a special
messenger. Politics were queer in Californy around that time. Spain
claimed the territory, the United States claimed it, an' for a
while--a month, maybe--Californy was a republic on her own. The
messenger reached Washington, all right, an' his report hurried up the
signin' o' the treaty which made Californy American. That happened
jest six weeks after Marshall had picked up his first bit o' gold an'
only two weeks after the messenger arrived. Word was sent to Mason to
be sure an' keep law an' order, no matter what happened. It was a bit
too late, then; goin' an' comin' from Washington took months.

[Footnote 7: See the author's "The Boy with the U. S. Mail."]

"Things were happenin' out 'Frisco way. Geo. Bennett, who'd been
workin' at the mill, left there about the middle o' February, takin'
some flakes o' gold with him. When he got to 'Frisco, he met Isaac
Humphrey, who'd worked on the Dahlonega strike, in Georgia, in 1830.
Humphrey took jest one look at the stuff, an' said right away that it
was gold.

"Bennett an' Humphrey hot-footed it back to the mill. They found it
workin' jest as usual. Some o' the men had picked up more gold, but
casual-like, after workin' hours. Marshall hadn't done any more
prospectin'. Sutter was waitin' to hear from Mason.

"Humphrey, bein' a gold miner, panned up an'