ver, they were improving somewhat, for a Vigilance Committee
had just been started, comprising all the prominent citizens of the
town. Parties of armed men had seized upon some of the most notorious
desperadoes of the place, and had hung them on the lamp-posts, while
others had been warned that a like fate awaited them if they were found
three hours later within the limits of the town.

Similar scenes took place in San Francisco, for the force of the law was
wholly insufficient to restrain the reckless and desperate men who
congregated in the towns, and who thought no more of taking life than
eating a meal. To put a stop to the frightful state of things
prevailing, the more peaceful of the San Francisco citizens had also
been obliged to organise a Vigilance Committee to carry out what was
called Lynch law, a rough and ready method of justice subject to grave
abuses under other circumstances, but admirably suited to such a
condition of things as at that time prevailed in California.

For some time Frank worked between Sacramento and the diggings. He
enjoyed the life, riding in the pure mountain air, under the shade of
the forests, at the head of the team. Sometimes he wondered vaguely how
long this was to last; if he was always to remain a rover, or whether he
would ever return to England. Sometimes he resolved that he would go
home and make an effort to clear himself of this stain which rested upon
his name; but he could see no method whatever of doing so, as he had
nothing but his own unsupported assertion of his innocence to adduce
against the circumstantial evidence against him, and there was no reason
why his word should be taken now more than it was before.

In many of the camps life had now become more civilised. In cases where
the bed of gold-bearing gravel was large, and where, consequently, work
would be continued for a long time, wooden towns had sprung up, with
hotels, stores, drinking and gambling saloons. Work was here carried on
methodically; water was, in some cases, brought many miles in little
canals from mountain lakes down to the diggings, and operations were
carried on on a large scale. Companies were being formed for buying up
and working numbers of claims together.

The valleys were honeycombed with shafts driven down, sometimes through
a hundred feet of gravel, to the bed rock, as it was found much more
profitable working this way than in surface-washing. Stage-coaches and
teams of waggons were