At first he drank a little, and after a short time he took a little more, and he continued to take a little quite often and said he could not live in California without it. He said that he had once been a hard drinker, and I was afraid that he was in great danger of falling into his former evil practices.
He argued that it was impossible for him to live without it in California. It had once saved his life, but that if he should return to his home in the East, he would again be as strong an advocate of temperance as formerly. How this proved I cannot say, but while I knew him in California after I was with him on this trip, he appeared to be one of the most confirmed hard drinking men that came within the circle of my acquaintance.
To pull the heavily loaded boat against the current we found to be very hard work and the progress was quite slow. We had made our way up the Sacramento a considerable distance, when one day, owing to the head wind being so very strong, we could make little or no headway; we were compelled to tie up and remain nearly the whole day.
This was at a point where several choppers were at work cutting wood for the Sacramento market. They were paid eight dollars per cord for cutting it and were not required to split it. This I thought would be a good job, and that if Mr. Pinney would hire another man in my place to help pull the boat up the river, I would stay and cut wood for a while. I promised Mr. Burch my wages for the time I had been on the trip, thinking he could find no fault with that arrangement. Mr. Pinney thought I was under obligation to him to help dig the ditch for Mr. Burch and said that if I stopped here he should do the same.
I knew that such an arrangement would not be fair treatment to Mr. Burch. Mr. Pinney had a settlement to make with him in regard to the purchases made and the funds remaining in his hands. He also had contracted to excavate about 120 rods of ditch. I had consented to dig a part of it and would not refuse to do it without his full consent. Still I thought he might release me. Under the circumstances I continued to go up the river with the boat.
On the 5th day of January, 1850, we reached a point on the river about twelve miles below Burch’s ranch, where we were met by Mr. Burch, who concluded to go with us up the river in the boat. Our passengers left us here and started on foot toward the mines.
After meeting Mr. Burch we proceeded toward our destination and on the night of January 7th reached a point not more than one and one-half miles below Burch’s. Two or three days previous we had fallen in with another boat and party bound up the river, laden with provisions, owned and manned by some men from the Pine Tree state. They were two brothers by the name of Frye, Jack Percy, and a man working for them.
On the night of the 7th we all camped on the bank of the river almost within sight of home—“Our California Home”—but on the opposite side of the river. The night was dark and stormy and the rain descended in torrents, with the wind blowing almost a gale from the south. After several fruitless attempts we succeeded in starting a fire, by which we cooked some pork and flapjacks.
On the morning of January 8th it still rained as hard as on the night previous. We started on our journey as early as it became sufficiently light to see how to arrange our camp fixtures properly. We did not even remain to prepare any breakfast, but started with the expectation of reaching Burch’s ranch before noon. We were not long in reaching the foot of the rapids in company with the Maine boat.
We had aboard a long rope and we concluded it would be the better plan for all hands to pull one boat up by the willow brush that grew along the water’s edge a