ht, dear M., that here, with the "green watching hills"
as witnesses, amid a solitude so grand and lofty that it seems as if
the faintest whisper of passion must be hushed by its holy stillness, I
should have to relate the perpetration of one of those fearful deeds
which, were it for no other peculiarity than its startling suddenness,
so utterly at variance with all _civilized_ law, must make our
beautiful California appear to strangers rather as a hideous phantom
than the flower-wreathed reality which she is.

Whether the life which a few men, in the impertinent intoxication of
power, have dared to crush out was worth that of a fly, I do not
know,--perhaps not,--though God alone, methinks, can judge of the value
of the soul upon which he has breathed. But certainly the effect upon
the hearts of those who played the principal parts in the revolting
scene referred to--a tragedy, in my simple judgment, so utterly
useless--must be demoralizing in the extreme.

The facts in this sad case are as follows. Last fall, two men were
arrested by their partners on suspicion of having stolen from them
eighteen hundred dollars in gold-dust. The evidence was not sufficient
to convict them, and they were acquitted. They were tried before a
meeting of the miners, as at that time the law did not even _pretend_
to wave its scepter over this place.

The prosecutors still believed them guilty, and fancied that the gold
was hidden in a coyote-hole near the camp from which it had been taken.
They therefore watched the place narrowly while the suspected men
remained on the Bar. They made no discoveries, however, and soon after
the trial the acquitted persons left the mountains for Marysville.

A few weeks ago, one of these men returned, and has spent most of the
time since his arrival in loafing about the different barrooms upon the
river. He is said to have been constantly intoxicated. As soon as the
losers of the gold heard of his return, they bethought themselves of
the coyote-hole, and placed about its entrance some brushwood and
stones in such a manner that no one could go into it without disturbing
the arrangement of them. In the mean while the thief settled at Rich
Bar, and pretended that he was in search of some gravel-ground for
mining purposes.

A few mornings ago he returned to his boarding-place, which he had left
some hour earlier, with a spade in his hand, and, as he laid it down,
carelessly observed that he had been out pro