Gold

With daylight we began to get a grip on ourselves a little. I felt strongly that I should see to Yank, and so announced. Johnny at once offered to accompany me. While we were ta...

We loaded our pack-horses, and set off next morning early on the trail up the American River. At last, it seemed to us, we were really under way; as though our long journeyings...

We arrived early in the afternoon, and we were all eyes; for here was a city taken directly from the pages of the Boy's Own Pirate. Without the least effort of the imagination w...

As now we are all settled down to our various occupations, Yank of patience, Johnny of delighted adventuring, and myself of dogged industry, it might be well to give you some so...

Although we did not immediately run into the expected thousands, nor did the promise of that first glorious day of discovery quite fulfil itself, nevertheless our new diggings t...

I followed him to the hotel somewhat gloomily; for I was now the only member of our party who had not made good the agreed amount of the partnership. It is significant that neve...

We talked the situation over thoroughly, and then turned in, having lost our chance to see the sights. Beneath us and in the tent next door went on a tremendous row of talking,...

We stood in between the hills that guarded the bay of San Francisco about ten o'clock of an early spring day. A fresh cold wind pursued us; and the sky above us was bluer than I...

At first there seemed slight chance of getting either. The place was crowded beyond its capacity. The Hotel Francaise--a shed-and-tent sort of combination with a muddy natural f...

We drew up to San Francisco early in the afternoon, and we were, to put it mildly, thoroughly astonished at the change in the place. To begin with, we now landed at a long wharf...

We had many sorts of men in our club, but nearly all young. One, in especial, early attracted my attention, and held it through all the changing vicissitudes of our many meeting...

We went out to see Yank, with the full intention of spending the evening and cheering him up. He was dozing, restless, waking and sleeping by fits and starts. We sat around in t...

We made our way out of the hills without adventure worth noting. The road was muddy, and a good deal washed. In fact, we had occasionally to do considerable manoeuvring to find...

We felt very elated--and rather small. Talbot had alone and without, so to speak, moving from his tracks, made a fortune, while we, after going through many hardships, adventure...

Johnny did not return at all that night, but showed up next morning at the diggings, looking blear-eyed and sleepy. He told us he had slept with a friend, and replied rather cur...

"Well! well! well! well!" he cried over and over again. "But I _am_ glad to see you! I'd no idea where you were or what you were doing! Why couldn't you write a man occasionally?"

If I had any scruples--and I do not remember many--they were overcome within the next day or two. It was agreed that I was to go in Ward's employ, he to pay my passage money and...

In the early morning one day we came in sight of a round high bluff with a castle atop, and a low shore running away. The ship's man told us this was Chagres.

Our visit to the town we postponed from day to day because we were either too busy or too tired. We thought we could about figure out what that crude sort of village would be li...

Catlin dwelt in a detached room back of the Empire, together with one of the other professional gamblers. We lounged around the corner of the Empire building. The door of the ca...

No sooner had this radical clean-up of the body politic been consummated than the rains began. That means little to any but a Californian. To him it means everything. We were qu...

Two days later Yank, Johnny, and I embarked aboard a small bluff-bowed sailboat, waved our farewells to Talbot standing on the shore, and laid our course to cross the blue bay b...

No concerted attempt was made by the roughs to avenge the execution of their comrades. Whether they realized that such an attempt would be likely to solidify the decent element,...

We had a good deal of trouble finding the exact spot where we had left him, for we could get no answer to our calls. He was down in a heap, covered with blood, and quite dead. T...

Yank had progressed from his bunk to the bench outside, and from that to a slow hobbling about near the Morena cabin. Two of the three months demanded by Dr. Rankin had passed....

We could not understand this sudden departure, except on the possible ground that Yank, realizing that now the party must split forces, had decided to seek new companions among...

Danny Randall issued his orders as a general would. First he sent warning word to Cal Marsh, still nursing his shoulder. Through one of his barkeepers he caused to be called to...

The overland immigrants never ceased to interest us. The illness, destitution, and suffering that obtained among these people has never been adequately depicted. For one outfit...

So things went along for a month. Christmas drew near. Every joint in town was preparing for a big celebration, and we were fully in the mood to take part in it. The Ward Block...

There were nine of us--Bagsby, Yank, Johnny Fairfax, myself, Don Gaspar, Vasquez, McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones. We possessed, in all, just nine horses. Yank, Vasquez,...

"Now," said Johnny, when our after-breakfast pipes had been lit, "we've got to get together. There's two serious questions before the house: the first and most important is, who...

Sutter's Fort was situated at the edge of the live-oak park. We found it to resemble a real fort, with high walls, bastions, and a single gate at each end through which one ente...

We cooked ourselves a meal, and built ourselves a fire. About midnight we heard the sounds of horses rapidly approaching. Immediately we leaped from our bunks and seized our rif...

It was now about four o'clock. The crowd dispersed slowly in different directions, and to its different occupations and amusements. We wandered about, all eyes and ears. As yet...

We ate a very silent supper, washed our dishes methodically, and walked up to town. The Bella Union was the largest of the three gambling houses--a log and canvas structure some...

The following days were replicas of the first. We ate hurriedly at odd times; we worked feverishly; we sank into our tumbled blankets at night too tired to wiggle. But the bucks...

The meeting took place in the Bella Union, and the place was crowded to the doors. All the roughs in town were on hand, fully armed, swearing, swaggering, and brandishing their...

"To tell you the truth," the narrator confided to me, "I don't know where we're going. We have no money. We've got to get work somehow. I don't know now why we came."

We awoke next morning to a bright day. The helmeted quail were calling; the bees were just beginning a sun-warmed hum among the bushes; a languorous warmth hung in the air, and...

We arose before daylight, picketed our horses, left our dishes unwashed, and hurried down to the diggings just at sun-up carrying our gold pans or "washbowls," and our extra too...

Our _padrone_, as Talbot told us we should call him, stood in front clad in a coloured muslin shirt. The broad sluggish river was alive with boats, all making their way against...

Within ten hours men were at work rebuilding. Within ten days the burned area was all rebuilt. It took us just about the former period of time to determine that we would be unab...

We made desperate efforts next morning to find somebody who knew the man, or at least could point out to us his effects; but in vain. All was confusion, and everybody was too bu...

"You-all have a rich diggings yere," said he; "and you want to stay a while and git the most there is out of them. And if you're going to do that, you've got to get a good ready...

Though these Indian troubles had nothing to do with it, nevertheless they marked the beginning of our change of luck. We suffered no definite misfortunes; but things did not go...

Somewhere in this book I must write a paragraph exclusively about myself. The fact that in the outcome of all these stirring events I have ended as a mere bookkeeper is perhaps...

XIV. Sutter's Fort 141 XV. The Gold Trail 148 XVI. The First Gold 164 XVII. The Diggings 170 XVIII. Beginnings of Government 176 XIX. Sunday at Hangman's Gulch 185 XX. The Gold...

XL. The Rains 371 XLI. We Go Out 380 XLII. San Francisco Again 392 XLIII. The Golden Web 404 XLIV. Plutocrats! 414 XLV. The Catastrophe 425 XLVI. The Vision 433

I. Oh, Susannah! 3 II. The Hammerlock 7 III. The Voyage 19 IV. The Village by the Lagoon 28 V. A Tropical River 38 VI. The Village in the Jungle 44 VII. The Trail 56 VIII. Panam...