ld-finder laid in wait for
Bodies in the river
Gold for a pillow
Robberies
Rags
Brandy at a dollar a-dram
The big bony American again
Sutter's Fort
Intelligence of Lacosse
Intelligence of the robbers
Sweeting's Hotel again
A meeting
"El Capitan"
Desertions from the ships
Andreas' offer to a captain
The first Alcalde gone to the mines
The second Alcalde follows his superior
Start for Monterey in pursuit of Andreas
Board the vessels in port
A deserter arrested
Leave Monterey
Cross the coast range
Meet with civilized Indians
Intelligence of the robbers
Indian horse-stealers
Continue the pursuit
Abandon it and return to Monterey.

I stayed with Malcolm throughout the next few days, and spent a good
part of my time out of doors among the gold-washers, but still I felt
no inclination to take part in their labours. Fever was very prevalent,
and I found that more than two-thirds of the people at this settlement
were unable to move out of their tents. The other third were too
selfish to render them any assistance. The rainy season was close at
hand, when they would have to give over work, but meanwhile they sought
after the gold as though all their hopes of salvation rested on their
success. I was told that deaths were continually taking place, and that
the living comrades of those whose eyes were closed in that last sleep
when "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest,"
denied the poor corpses of their former friends a few feet of earth for
a grave, and left the bodies exposed for the wolf to prey upon.

In a couple of days Malcolm was sufficiently recovered no longer to
require my assistance. At his instigation, I took my departure towards
Sutter's Fort, where McPhail or Lacosse might perhaps still be waiting
for me. I felt that he was in good hands, and that his kind Californian
nurse and her husband would do all that they could for him. Their kind
treatment of my poor friend offered a striking contrast to the callous
selfishness around.

I journeyed by slow marches along the banks of the Sacramento, passing
several colonies of gold-finders on my way. At noon I halted at one of
these, and loitered some little time round about the camp. The
rapidly-decaying vegetation--here unusually rank--was producing a
malaria, and sickness was doing its ravages; but still the poor
infatuated people, or rather such of them as were not prevented by
posi