and besides, the people were too busy running about, bargaining in real
estate, making money quick.

The dust was floating high, from the many feet; and as the street
became a road out of the town, the dust was thicker than ever, from
parties on before. It lay brown and powdery, ankle-deep and hot to the
boots. The sun blazed down fiercely. Leading the little burro, in his
heavy clothing Charley soon was streaming with perspiration; before,
tramped with long stride the Fremonter, a rifle on shoulder; at the
rear stanchly limped Mr. Adams, well laden with gun and pistol and the
few articles that he and Mr. Grigsby had divided.

The burro's pack displayed crowbars and shovels and picks and gold pans
and camp equipage; and to Charley's mind the little procession looked
very business-like.

After following the dusty road through a flat brown plain, in about a
mile and a half they passed what Mr. Grigsby said was the famous
Sutter's Fort. With its thick clay walls and square towers at the
corners, pierced with loopholes, it did indeed look like a fort.
Inside the walls were several clay buildings where the captain had
lived and stored his goods and taught his Indians to do white man's
work. He had erected his fort here in 1839, and had been given all the
land about, by the Mexican government of California. But now the fort
was deserted; the doors and windows had been broken in, most of the
wood had been torn out and carried off, and the fields about had been
used as pasturage by the gold seekers. No wonder that the captain felt
aggrieved; and it was pretty hard on him, when really because of his
saw-mill had gold been discovered. This was poor reward for having
settled the country and built a saw-mill--and a flour mill besides.

"There's the Rio Americano," spoke Mr. Grigsby, pointing ahead, after
they had passed old Fort Sutter.

About a quarter of a mile before on the left, a line of trees indicated
the course of a river--the American. And a fine stream it proved to
be, flowing clear and sparkling between wooded grassy banks. The road,
still dusty, turned slightly, and ascended along the river, making
toward the rolling brown foothills which shimmered in the blue
distance, with the mighty snow-crests of the Sierra Nevada range
glinting beyond them.

In the shallows and on the bars of the American parties of miners were
at work digging away with spades and picks, and squatting to wash out
the gold in their