“Come, I like this sort of thing,” said one of the party, an Englishman, when the order was given to start. “If it is all like this it will be uncommonly jolly.”
“I guess it ain’t all like this, stranger,” said one of the Americans with a good-humoured grin.
One of the guides laughed, and the other ejaculated “humph!” as they set forward.
There was indeed some ground for the remark of the Englishman, for the country through which they passed was most beautiful, and the weather delicious. Their track lay over an undulating region of park-like land covered with short grass; clumps of bushes were scattered here and there about the plain, and high above these towered some magnificent specimens of the oak, sycamore, and Californian cypress, while in the extreme distance rose the ranges of the “golden” mountains—the Sierra Nevada—in the midst of which lay the treasures of which they were in search.
All the members of the party were on foot, and, being fresh, full of hope, and eager to reach their destination. They chatted gaily as they marched over the prairie.
On the way the good-humoured American seemed to take a fancy to Frank, with whom he had a great deal of animated conversation. After asking our hero every possible question in regard to himself and intentions, he told him that he was Yankee,—a piece of superfluous information, by the way;—that his name was Jeffson, that he was a store-keeper at one of the farthest off diggings, that the chief part of the loading of one of the mules belonged to him, and that he was driving a considerable business in gold-dust without the trouble of digging for it.
Towards evening they came to a very small hole in the plain, which was dignified with the name of a well. Here they stopped to replenish their water-casks.
“Take as much as you can carry, men,” said the principal guide, “we’ve a long march to the next well, over sandy ground, and sometimes there ain’t much water in it.”
They all followed this advice with the exception of one man, a coarse savage-looking fellow, with a huge black beard and matted locks, who called himself Bradling, though there was ground for doubting whether that was the name by which he had been at first known in the world. This man pulled out an enormous brandy-flask, and with a scoffing laugh said:—
“This is the water for me, mister guide, pure and unmixed, there’s nothin’ like it.”