"Well, I'll tell yer. I was one of the first that come out here, from Kalifornee. I'd been duing a smartish bit of business down thar. But I tell yer, the dollars didn't come in fast enough. Than, I heerd of this darned place, and thought I'd strike for it and find 'ile, sure. So, I made up a good kit o' things to last me two months, and sit out. Darn the diggings. I've been at work thar, more nor three months, and here I am at the first square meal I've sot down tu for three days, as I told yer before, and a darned bad one, too, as I said when I finished it."
"Then you don't believe there is much gold in this part of the country?"
"Thar may be, Captain!"
"What do yer mean, then?" inquired Ben Painter.
"I found none," drawled out the Yank as he slowly rose, "and by the 'Tarnal! I nev'r met one as has."
The groan that issued from the bottom of Brighton Bill's stomach, would, at any other time than this, have provoked mirth. It did not, however, do so now. The matter was far too serious for laughter.
If the disgusted Yankee had told us the truth, it was evidently no use for us to help thicken the crowd of deluded seekers for gold, thronging to the diggings. Provisions, as I have earlier said, were scarce. They were consequently dear. Our own stock had for several days been running low. What was to be done?
More inquiries were made by us. The replies, although varying in degree, were all of them confirmatory, more or less, of the Yankee's opinion.
After a brief council of war, the Rangers, therefore, decided upon striking once more for Puget Sound, in search of game. If we found it, we would kill enough for us to take our return-trail. Game, however, was scarcer in that locality than we had found gold to be in the neighborhood of Frazer's River. We had to betake ourselves to digging; not in the soil for the precious metal, but in the sand on the shore of the Sound for clams and mussels. Even these were rarely found by us. In short, the Rangers and their leader were reduced to the very verge of starvation. Nor did we run any risk of meeting any charitable person who might have the means of giving us "one square meal," even if it were "a darned bad one."
In this strait, it was resolved on to start for the mountains, and take the chance of killing or being killed, to save us from dying by hunger.