in Washington vainly petitioning Congress for
restitution.

CHAPTER XV

THE GOLD TRAIL

We loaded our pack-horses, and set off next morning early on the trail
up the American River. At last, it seemed to us, we were really under
way; as though our long journeyings and many experiences had been but a
preparation for this start. Our spirits were high, and we laughed and
joked and sang extravagantly. Even Yank woke up and acted like a frisky
colt. Such early wayfarers as we met, we hailed with shouts and
chaffing; nor were we in the least abashed by an occasional surly
response, or the not infrequent attempts to discourage our hopes. For
when one man said there was no gold; another was as confident that the
diggings were not even scratched.

The morning was a very fine one; a little chilly, with a thin white mist
hanging low along the ground. This the sun soon dissipated. The birds
sang everywhere. We trudged along the dusty road merrily.

Every little while we stopped to readjust the burdens to our animals. A
mountaineer had showed us how to lash them on, but our skill at that
sort of thing was _miner's_, and the packs would not hold. We had
to do them one at a time, using the packed animal as a pattern from
which to copy the hitch on the other. In this painful manner we learned
the Squaw Hitch, which, for a long time, was to be the extent of our
knowledge. However, we got on well enough, and mounted steadily by the
turns and twists of an awful road, following the general course of the
river below us.

On the hills grew high brush, some of it very beautiful. The buckthorn,
for example, was just coming out; and the dogwood, and the mountain
laurel. At first these clumps of bush were few and scattered; and the
surface of the hills, carpeted with short grass, rolled gently away, or
broke in stone dikes and outcrops. Then later, as we mounted, they drew
together until they covered the mountainsides completely, save where
oaks and madrone kept clear some space for themselves. After a time we
began to see a scrubby long-needled pine thrusting its head here and
there above the undergrowth. That was as far as we got that day. In the
hollow of a ravine we found a tiny rill of water, and there we camped.
Johnny offered some slight objections at first. It was only two o'clock
of the afternoon, the trees were scrubby, the soil dusty, the place
generally uncomfortable. But Yank shook his head.

"If we knew how they p