Returning sunshine wrought a wondrous alteration in our feelings. The country, always beautiful, now presented a still more attractive appearance. After months of drought and dust, Nature seemed to have washed her face and put on her best attire, while the birds singing in every tree, and the fresh green of the shooting grass, were far more suggestive of May than of November.
The fine weather, however, brought with it one disagreeable necessity—that of working without knowing where we could do it to advantage. There were, indeed, plenty of places where we could make five dollars a day, but we were not yet, thank heaven, reduced to that extremity. We had sunk our expectations from thousands to hundreds, and were willing to work for any reasonable compensation; but there was a point at which such poverty of spirit ceased to be a virtue. We were confirmed in this lofty temper by hopes of what we would do in the spring. There were other rivers not yet so completely turned over as the South Fork, and other places not so entirely worn out as Mormon Island; we would be among the first to force our way into these new diggings, when we should easily make up for all we had lost.
In the meantime the best thing we could do was to make ourselves as comfortable as possible; and our late experience had shown that to this end nothing was so essential as a fire in rainy weather. Our neighbours had generally effected this by building a heavy chimney of stones and earth against one side of their tents; but, aside from the difficulty of such an undertaking, the quantity of fuel that would be thus required was a very serious objection. We thought ourselves, therefore, very fortunate in obtaining a small sheet-iron stove of the rudest construction, that had been manufactured the preceding year for a trader in the village, for the very moderate sum of two hundred and eighty dollars. On bringing it home, we found no room for it in the tent, except just within the door, where it stood like a sturdy little three-legged Dutchman, valiantly presenting its gaping blunderbuss of a funnel in the very face and eyes of the audacious intruder, who verily thought that if he escaped being blown to pieces, he should infallibly be suffocated by its pestilent fumes. To tell the truth, however, greater part of the smoke made its way directly back into the tent, when it seemed to find huge delight in circling round a hornet's nest in the very summit of the sugar-loaf, and to wonder strangely that it could not get out; till Tertium happily conceived the idea of fitting an old boot bereft of its toe, on to the other end of the funnel, after which the smoke found no difficulty in walking in a different direction.
Mowbray having determined to leave the mines, we seized the opportunity of laying in a stock of winter provisions. We bought half a barrel of sour flour, the same quantity of syrup, of sugar and salt pork, together with half-a-dozen Dutch cheeses, as many boxes of sardines, fifty pounds of soda crackers, and a variety of smaller articles.
All this wealth added to what we had before, rendered a larger tent indispensable; and as we could find none for sale in the vicinity, I went with Number Four to examine one belonging to a man on the North Fork.
It is impossible to describe the beauty and glory of California at that fine season. The crisp frosty air of the morning is quickly succeeded by a warm hazy glow resembling that of our Indian summer. It is not summer, nor spring, nor autumn, but a most artful and delicious combination of all three. The country is an endless succession of hills, whose distant slopes remind one continually of thrifty apple orchards, while from every summit a prospect is presented apparently out of all proportion to the trifling elevation.
Our course led us first a mile down the South Fork to where it unites with the North to form the American river; crossing the boiling current in a dug-out, we ascended the steep-hill on the other side, and walking a few rods up the North Fork, came to the store where our old friend Capt. Bill was clerk. It was a log-house, long and low, and divided into two apartments, one of which served for the store, and the other for a dining-room. A large number of miners were at work in the neighbourhood, and some of them boarded at this establishment; which thus united the dignity of a grocery or variety store to that of a village tavern.
The salutations and inquiries usual on such occasions were followed by the never-failing invitation, "Well, boys, what 'ill you take to drink?" and an enumeration of all the various liquors supposed to be suited to our different palates.
We had not then, however, been long enough in the country to accommodate ourselves to this fashion; and soon after, continuing our walk, we came in a few minutes to the tent of which we were in search. Finding it to our liking, we weighed out two-and-a-half ounces, and at once set out on our return, with the tent on our shoulders, stopping every now and then to call each other's attention to some prospect of unusual beauty—to the hares and squirrels that sported carelessly among the rocks—or to the striped acorns that covered the ground almost as long and taper as a lady's finger.
The next day, in spite of the threatening sky, we went to prospect some ravines four miles from the island on the Sacramento road. Dr. Collyer had already moved to this locality and had promised to send us word if he found it favourable for mining; but as we heard nothing from him, we determined to make a personal examination. The walk, though totally unlike that of the day before, was in some respects even more agreeable. Far to the left a range of low hills seemed to hold up the sky, while the leaden clouds, oozing down between, communicated their own dark mysterious hue to the softened slopes and winding valleys.