he to pay my passage money and all expenses, I to give him half
the gold I might pick up. This seemed to me, at least, an eminently
satisfactory and businesslike arrangement. Ward bought the outfits for
both of us. It turned out that he was a Mexican war veteran--hence the
military cape--and in consequence an old campaigner. His experience and
my rural upbringing saved us from most of the ridiculous purchases men
made at that time. We had stout clothes and boots, a waterproof apiece,
picks and shovel, blankets and long strips of canvas, three axes,
knives, one rifle, a double shotgun, and a Colt's revolver apiece. The
latter seemed to me a wonderful weapon, with its six charges in the
turning cylinder; but I had no opportunity to try it.

Ward decided instantly for the Panama route.

"It's the most expensive, but also the quickest," said he; "a sailing
ship around the Horn takes forever; and across the plains is ditto.
Every day we wait, some other fellow is landing in the diggings."

Nearly every evening he popped into our boarding house, where, owing to
the imminence of my departure, I had been restored to favour. I never
did find out where he lived. We took our passage at the steamship
office; we went to the variety shows and sang _Oh, Susannah!_ with
the rest; we strutted a bit, and were only restrained from donning our
flannel shirts and Colt's revolving pistols in the streets of New York
by a little remnant, a very little remnant, of common sense. When the
time at last came, we boarded our steamship, and hung over the rail, and
cheered like crazy things. I personally felt as though a lid had been
lifted from my spirit, and that a rolling cloud of enthusiasm was at
last allowed to puff out to fill my heaven.

In two days we were both over being seasick, and had a chance to look
around us. Our ship was a side-wheel steamer of about a thousand tons,
and she carried two hundred and eighty passengers, which was about two
hundred more than her regular complement. They were as miscellaneous a
lot as mortal eye ever fell upon: from the lank Maine Yankee to the
tall, sallow, black-haired man from Louisiana. I suppose, too, all
grades of the social order must have been represented; but in our youth
and high spirits we did not go into details of that sort. Every man,
with the exception of a dozen or so, wore a red shirt, a slouch hat, a
revolver and a bowie knife; and most of us had started to grow beards.
Unless one scru