uld be overrun by gold-diggers from all ends of the earth!"

"But this flag," said Ned; "_he_ could never have placed that here. It
would have been swept away by storms years ago."

"You are right," said Tom, turning over the stones that supported the
staff--"halloo! what have we here?"

He pulled out a roll of oiled cloth as he spoke, and, on opening it,
discovered a scrap of paper, on which were written, in pencil, the
words, "_Help us!--for God's sake help us! We are perishing at the foot
of the hill to the southward of this_."

No name or date was attached to this strange paper, but the purport of
it was sufficiently clear so, without wasting time in fruitless
conjecture, the young men immediately sprang on their horses, and rode
down the hill in the direction indicated.

The route proved more rugged and steep than that by which they had
ascended, and, for a considerable distance, they wound their way between
the trunks of a closely-planted cypress grove; after passing which they
emerged upon a rocky plain of small extent, at the further extremity of
which a green oasis indicated the presence of a spring.

Towards this they rode in silence.

"Ah!" exclaimed Ned, in a tone of deep pity, as he reined up at the foot
of an oak-tree, "too late!"

They were indeed too late to succour the poor creatures who had placed
the scrap of paper on the summit of that mountain-ridge, in the faint
hope that friendly hands might discover it in time.

Six dead forms lay at the foot of the oak, side by side, with their pale
faces turned upwards, and the expression of extreme suffering still
lingering on their shrunken features. It needed no living witness to
tell their sad history. The skeletons of oxen, the broken cart, the
scattered mining tools, and the empty provision casks, shewed clearly
enough that they were emigrants who had left their homesteads in the
States, and tried to reach the gold-regions of California by the
terrible overland journey. They had lost their way among the dreary
fastnesses of the mountains, travelled far from the right road to the
mines, and perished at last of exhaustion and hunger on the very borders
of the golden land. The grey-haired father of the family lay beside a
young girl, with his arm clasped round her neck. Two younger men also
lay near them, one lying as if, in dying, he had sought to afford
support to the other. The bodies were still fresh, and a glance shewed
that nearly all