Before leaving Ford's Bar, we determined, however, to make one more trial of damming, and selected for that purpose a portion of the river just above the mouth of Otter Creek. For two whole days I stood up to my middle in water, painfully scooping out the sand and gravel with a long-handled shovel; and, in all that time, owing to the peculiar difficulties of the situation, only succeeded in digging a hole four feet in depth. As there was very little gold in any of the earth I had thrown out, we went no further; but another party, undeterred by our example, at once took possession, and having, after several weeks, completed their dam, found, to their own chagrin and our equal complacency, that the place was, as we had concluded, entirely worthless.
We now made up our minds to leave the Middle Fork as soon as possible, and sent Tertium on in advance to make a rapid and comprehensive survey of the diggings for a distance of ten or fifteen miles above Mormon Island.
While he was gone, we still continued to mine here and there along the banks. Returning, one day, from a longer tramp than usual, we came to a tent occupied by a party we had met several months before, on their first arrival in the mines. They were then in fine spirits; not even the clumsy packs, that bent them almost double, could crush their vigorous hope; and though I tried, with most disinterested benevolence, to moderate their extravagant expectations, it was easy to see that they gave no credit to my assertions. One of their number now lay in his graveclothes before their door; and his companions, themselves enfeebled by sickness, were waiting till some one should pass who would assist in carrying the body to the grave.
We offered our services, and, each taking a handle of the rude bier to which the body was lashed, we walked on in silence, our companions leading the way. After proceeding a quarter of a mile down the river, over such a path as we have already described, we turned to the left and began to ascend the mountain at the only place practicable in that neighbourhood. It was extremely steep and slippery; and it was only by clinging to the bushes, and sliding the bier along the ground, that we at length reached the elevated shelf or plateau where the grave had been dug. A few handfuls of fern were thrown over the body, wrapt simply in a blanket; two boards laid upon it, in the form of a roof; the earth thrown in, and all was over. Our companions thanked us for our assistance, and we returned to the bar, to inform the doctor that the patient he had seen almost well the day before, was dead and buried.
Sunday, came a letter from Tertium, advising us to return to Mormon Island, or Natoma, as it was now called; and the next Wednesday we packed our luggage on two mules, almost extinguishing them beneath the cumbrous load, and began, for the last time, painfully to ascend the winding path by which alone we could reach the lofty table-land above. We were obliged to halt repeatedly to re-adjust some perverse rocker or impracticable frying-pan; and, once or twice, the whole concern, mule and all, was only saved from rolling, in an avalanche of legs and tin kettles, down the mountain, by our catching sudden hold of the bridle, and, with the other hand, griping fast the bushes. Having reached the top in safety, we stopped awhile to breathe; then, filing softly on through the glorious pine forest, demolishing a whole colony of ant-lions at every step—like some moon-headed giant, striding from one planet to another, and unwittingly dusting away with his foot Broadway or St. Paul's—we came in a few hours to Georgetown, where we stopped till the next day.
We took supper at an eating-house kept by an honest Missourian, who had come across the Plains, and brought with him his whole family. He had the highest opinion of California, and well he might; one of his children, an interesting little girl of five, having already received quite a handsome dowry, a pint cupful of gold, presented to her at different times by the hard-fisted miners, whom her infantile grace had so pleasantly reminded of their own distant firesides.
We found very comfortable and genteel lodgings under an immense hay-rick, containing several hundred tons, in one corner of the village; and the next morning, having found a wagon going down to Sacramento, engaged the driver for ten dollars, to carry our luggage as far as Natoma. We rode this last part of the way, and had thus an opportunity of learning each other's experience. Our driver was comparatively a novus homo; he had been but a few months in the country, yet had already made several thousand dollars, and evidently placed no faith in our assertions, that we had, thus far, met with nothing but disappointment. He could not understand how a man could be a whole year in California without acquiring at least a moderate fortune. He had a store far up on the Middle Fork, where he was doing a fine business; and was now going down to Sacramento for a fresh supply of goods. It was not in human nature to feel no touches of envy, as we listened to his confident anticipations; yet I was really sorry on hearing, several months after, that he had lost his whole property by the failure of an extensive damming operation, in which he was largely interested. This is but a specimen of the ups and downs of California life.