The crossing of the stream was then effected. On mounting the opposite bank it was found that the Indians had taken up their position, fully armed, on the top of their huts, with an air of quiet resolution that showed they apprehended an attack, and were prepared to defend their homes to the death.
This, however, they were not called upon to do, for the travellers turned off to the right, and pursued their way as if nothing had happened. But two of the Indians had been badly hit, perhaps killed, and the thought of this dwelt much on the minds of Frank and his friend Joe all that day. Another thing that distressed them much was the well-known custom of the natives to take their revenge at the first favourable opportunity. It was a rule among them to take two lives of white men for every redskin killed, and they were known not to be particular as to who the whites might be,—sufficient for them that they were of the offending and hated race. The fact that the innocent might thus suffer for the guilty was to them a matter of perfect indifference.
The route over which the whites travelled that day chanced to be unusually picturesque and beautiful. The path, or “trail,”—for there was scarcely anything worthy the name of path,—wound through a sycamore and white-oak grove that fringed the river, the sloping banks of which were covered with an infinite variety of shrubs and evergreens, bearing flowers and blossoms of most delicate beauty and exquisite fragrance, amidst which tangled festoons of the indigenous vine drooped with pendant bunches of purple grapes. Arbutus shrubs of immense size were seen, and the landscape was in some places interspersed thickly with manzanita rushes, the crimson berries of which are much in favour with the Indians, also with the grizzly bear! Some of the plains they crossed were studded with magnificent oaks, devoid of underwood, such as one is accustomed to see in noblemen’s parks in England.
But all this beauty and luxuriance made comparatively little impression on Frank and Joe, for they could not forget that human life had probably been sacrificed that day—a thought which filled them with sincere regret that it had ever entered into their hearts to go digging for gold.
Chapter Six.
Arrival at the Gold-Fields, and Lessons in Gold-Washing received.
At last Bigbear Gully was reached, and our travellers—especially those of them who, being new to the work, were all enthusiasm—pressed eagerly forward, anxious to begin without delay.
Bigbear Gully—so named because of a huge grizzly bear that had been shot there at the commencement of digging operations—was a wild and somewhat gloomy but picturesque mountain gorge, the first sight of which, with its lights and shadows, stupendous cliffs and clumps of wood clinging to the hill-sides, called forth a burst of delight and admiration from Frank Allfrey, whose mind at once leaped with loving desire to the brush and the colour-box; but as these implements were at that time packed among the baggage on the mule’s back, and as the love of art was not sufficiently strong in the guide to induce him to permit of a moment’s delay in the journey, our hero was fain to content himself with visions of future indulgence in his favourite study.