"Three months after leaving New York we dropped anchor off San Francisco; but it was not then the great city of to-day, with thousands of noble buildings, paved streets, and electric lights, but a town of tents and hovels thrown together on either side of rough wagon-tracks, and these streets were only here and there faintly lit up at night by the sickly glow of smoky lamps and tallow candles that shone out from the open doorways and the turned-back flaps of dirty canvas huts.
"Although all hands had considerable money due them in the way of wages, it was counted as nothing compared with the bags of gold nuggets that we confidently expected to possess later on, so we all dropped overboard one night while the officers were asleep, and swam ashore. Each man had carefully retained a portion of the advance money paid to him before sailing, in order to buy a shovel, pickaxe, and provisions, and as the miners' stores always remained open until late at night, we supplied ourselves with what we required immediately after landing, and by sunrise were well on our way into the interior, safe from pursuit and capture as deserters.
"Our outfit was the most meagre, but it had taken every cent we had to purchase it, for pickaxes and shovels were five dollars each, and the provisions, which were of the poorest quality, were paid for at a corresponding price.
"There was no mistaking the way to the gold regions, for the trail was defined clearly enough in the way of broken-down and abandoned wagons of every variety, while small straggling parties and large organized companies either passed or were passed by us every few miles. Everybody and everything was colored with the magic suggestion of gold; even the atmosphere seemed to taste of the precious yellow metal, and there was but one thought, one ambition, one incessant subject of conversation from the gray-haired man to the youngster trotting along by his side, and that was gold! gold! gold!
"At last, after many hardships, we reached the gold country, where thousands of men, representing almost every nationality, were feverishly digging into the soil, sifting the sands of river-beds, and picking into the rocky sides of mountains, extracting the wealth that had been zealously hoarded by nature since the beginning of the world.
"It would make too long a story if I attempted to tell you of our work, our hopes, disappointments, and success. From one cause or another we kept separating, some to plunge deeper into the fastnesses of the mountains, some to associate with new partners, and others to try their fortunes alone. At last I found myself paired off with a man who had been my chum on board the San Juan—a manly young fellow, as brave as he was clever, and with whom I shared all the danger, trouble, and fortune that were met with during the time that we remained in the country.
"We tried every kind of work in the way of digging, washing, and searching for pockets in the rocks, treasuring our little finds carefully, and holding on to them as long as we could; but living of the cheapest kind was expensive, and in spite of all our frugality the store of gold in the leather belt-bags that we carried strapped about us would ebb and flow about as regularly as the ocean tides. Often would we work from sunrise to sunset, and then find ourselves rewarded by only just enough gold dust to exchange at the sutler's tent for a little flour and a piece of bacon on which to make our supper, while perhaps the men on either side of us had 'struck it rich,' and before our covetous eyes would exhibit a handful of yellow lumps or a tin cup brimming to the top with golden flecks of metal.
"One night as we sat rather disconsolate on a ledge of rock just outside the cave in which we kept house, and which we had dug for ourselves in the side of a steep hill, Jim Richards, my partner, exclaimed:
"'Luck's against us here, Sterling, and I'm for cutting loose and trying it back in the mountains, where we won't find ten men to every picayune bit of metal. What do you say?'
"'That's all right about the men part of it, Richards,' I answered, 'but how about Indians? They don't trouble us down here because we're too many for them; but wouldn't they make things rather lively for us back there?'