slender ankles and statuesque feet; haggardness of expression and
ugliness of features. Girl of sixteen, a "wildwood Cleopatra," an
exception to the general hideousness. The California Indian not the
Indian of the Leatherstocking tales. A stop at the Buckeye Rancho.
Start for Pleasant Valley Rancho. The trail again lost. Camping out for
the night. Growling bears. Arrive at Pleasant Valley Rancho. A
flea-haunted shanty. The beauty of the wilderness. Quail and deer. The
chaparrals, and their difficulty of penetration by the mules. Escape
from a rattlesnake. Descending precipitous hill on muleback.
Saddle-girth breaks. Harmless fall from the saddle. Triumphant entry
into Rich Bar. A tribute to mulekind. The Empire Hotel. "A huge shingle
palace."

Letter _the_ First

Part Two

_The_ JOURNEY _to_ RICH BAR

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 13, 1851.

The moon was just rising as we started. The air made one think of
fairy-festivals, of living in the woods _always_, with the green-coated
people for playmates, it was so wonderfully soft and cool, without the
least particle of dampness. A midsummer's night in the leafy month of
June, amid the dreamiest haunts of "Old Crownest," could not be more
enchantingly lovely.

We sped merrily onward until nine o'clock, making the old woods echo
with song and story and laughter, for F. was unusually gay, and I was
in tip-top spirits. It seemed to me so _funny_ that we two people
should be riding on mules, all by ourselves, in these glorious
latitudes, night smiling down so kindly upon us, and, funniest of
_all_, that we were going to live in the Mines! In spite of my gayety,
however, I now began to wonder why we did not arrive at our intended
lodgings. F. reassured me by saying that when we had _de_scended this
hill or _as_cended that, we should certainly be there. But ten o'clock
came; eleven, twelve, one, _two_! but no Berry Creek House! I began to
be frightened, and besides that, was very sick with a nervous headache.
At every step we were getting higher and higher into the mountains, and
even F. was at last compelled to acknowledge that we were _lost!_ We
were on an Indian trail, and the bushes grew so low that at almost
every step I was obliged to bend my forehead to my mule's neck. This
increased the pain in my head to an almost insupportable degree. At
last I told F. that I could not remain in the saddle a moment longer.
O