are scattered about these solitary wilds. On proceeding, however, to
examine the neighbouring soil, he discovered that it was more or less
auriferous. This at once decided him. He mounted his horse, and rode
down to me as fast as it would carry him with the news.

"At the conclusion of Mr. Marshall's account," continued Captain
Sutter, "and when I had convinced myself, from the specimens he had
brought with him, that it was not exaggerated, I felt as much excited
as himself. I eagerly inquired if he had shown the gold to the
work-people at the mill, and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to
a single person about it. We agreed," said the Captain, smiling, "not
to mention the circumstance to any one, and arranged to set off early
the next day for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we
poked the sand about in various places, and before long succeeded in
collecting between us more than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good
deal of sand. I stayed at Mr. Marshall's that night, and the next day
we proceeded some little distance up the South Fork, and found that
gold existed along the whole course, not only in the bed of the main
stream, where the water had subsided, but in every little dried-up
creek and ravine. Indeed I think it is more plentiful in these latter
places, for I myself, with nothing more than a small knife, picked out
from a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold
which weighed nearly an ounce and a half.

"On our return to the mill, we were astonished by the work-people
coming up to us in a body, and showing us small flakes of gold similar
to those we had ourselves procured. Marshall tried to laugh the matter
off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only
some shining mineral of trifling value; but one of the Indians, who had
worked at the gold mine in the neighbourhood of La Paz, in Lower