Davis was declared Captain, he said, "Now friends, we must hire these
men to escort us to California; if there is anybody here that is not in
favor of this let him say so now."

But everyone shouted, "Yes! yes!"

Davis turned to us and said, "What is your price for the trip?"

Jim said to me, "What do you say, Will?"

I replied, "It is worth four dollars a day each."

Jim told the Captain that we would go for four dollars a day to be paid
each of us every Saturday night, and if at the end of the first week we
had not given satisfaction, we would quit. Davis put it to a vote, and
it was carried in our favor.

The balance of the evening was spent in making arrangements to commence
drilling the men. In the morning Jim said to me, "Now, Will, I'll take
charge of the wagons and you take charge of the scouts."

I told the Captain that I wanted him to select seven good men that owned
their horses. I wanted to drill them to act as scouts. Jim said, "Yes,
we want to get to drilling every body tomorrow morning."

We put in four hard days' work at this business, and then we were ready
for the trail, and we pulled out on our long and tedious journey to the
land of gold.

There were four hundred and eighty-six men and ninety women in the