a yoke of oxen, who was freighting goods up to Coloma.
He said he had seven hundred and fifty acres of land in Oregon, but no
cattle on it. He thought he would come to California and get gold enough
to buy them, and his wife was keeping a cake and pie stand on the
streets of that city. I never saw him after that trip, but coming with
so modest expectations, I have no doubt he was successful.

We started on our journey in the afternoon. The country through which we
traveled looked as if it had been an old-settled land, and deserted by
its inhabitants. It seemed that we must come to a farm-house, but there
was none. There were scattering trees in the country and occasionally a
woods, but no dense forest. We made eight miles, then camped for the
night on the edge of a woods. I had brought no provisions with me, so I
offered him $1 per meal to eat with him, which was accepted. He made
tea, cooked some Indian meal, and had a jug of molasses; so we made a
very good supper. I got my satchel out of the wagon for a pillow, and
with my blankets made my bed on the ground under the wagon. I thought it
would keep the dew off, but there was none.

There is no danger of taking cold sleeping on the ground in the dry
season, when it does not rain for seven months. He had set fire to a
dead tree to keep the grizzly bears off, and about the time I got
comfortably laid down, there was a pack of coyote wolves came howling
around. Amid those surroundings, the burning of the fire to keep the
grizzlies off and howling of the wolves, I fell asleep and did not wake
until morning, refreshed from my slumbers. After a breakfast similar to
the meal the night before, we proceeded on our journey, but the ox team
travelled so slow that in walking I got away ahead of it, and then got
tired of waiting for it to come up to me, and so went on alone. Toward
night I came to Mormon Island, the first gold diggings. I inquired if
there was a place where I could get quarters for the night. They said I
might, at the hospital. It was a log cabin with bunks in it, and what
was my astonishment to find the proprietor, a doctor from Troy, N.Y., an
old acquaintance. I was more than welcome. We were both delighted to see
each other. I to find such comfortable quarters, and he to meet with a
friend in the wilderness, and to hear the latest news from the East. He
got for me the best supper that the surroundings would afford; as I had
eaten nothing since morning, it was v