The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Cave of Gold, by Everett McNeil

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Title: The Cave of Gold
A Tale of California in '49

Author: Everett McNeil

Release Date: December 17, 2006 [eBook #20126]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE CAVE OF GOLD

A Tale of California in '49

by

EVERETT McNEIL

Author of "Fighting with Fremont," "In Texas with Davy Crockett," "With
Kit Carson in the Rockies," Etc.

New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Ave.

First Printing, January, 1911
Second Printing, August. 1919
Third Printing, June, 1926
Printed in the U.S.A.

TO THE DESCENDANTS YOUNG OR OLD OF THE HARDY FORTY-NINERS THIS STORY OF
THE EXCITING DAYS OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA IS HOPEFULLY
DEDICATED

[Illustration: "YOU LIE!" AND THE HARD FIST LANDED SQUARELY ON THE MAN'S
CHIN.]

FOREWORD

On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up two
yellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, from
the tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of the
American River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, now
Sacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon it
was discovered that all the region thereabouts was thickly sown with
shining particles of the same precious yellow metal. A few months later
and