When they had completed their outfit they set out. A long journey lay before them. From Independence to the gold region was rather more than two thousand miles, and such were the difficulties of the way that they only averaged about fifteen miles a day. A detailed account of the trip would only be wearisome, and I shall confine myself to some of the salient incidents.
The custom was to make an early start and stop at intervals, partly for the preparation of meals and partly to give the patient animals a chance to rest.
One evening—it was about ten weeks after the start—they had encamped for the night, and Mrs. Cooper, assisted by Grant, was preparing supper, a fire having been kindled about fifty feet from the wagon, when steps were heard, and a singular looking figure emerged from the underbush. It was a man, with a long, grizzled beard, clad in a tattered garb, with an old slouch hat on his head, and a long, melancholy visage.
“I trust you are well, my friends,” he said. “Do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”
Tom Cooper laughed.
“We are not alarmed,” he said. “That is, not much. Who are you?”
“An unhappy wayfarer, who has been wandering for days, almost famished, through this wilderness.”
“Do you live about here?”
“No; I am on my way to California.”
“Not alone, surely?”