t another
prospector, Samuel Orr (who afterwards became his brother-in-law), and
the two joined forces, becoming, in miners' phrase, "pardners."

Led on by the ever-fleeing hope of the great "strike" that might lie
just ahead, the two men penetrated so far into the depths of this
rugged mountain country that they were for some time out of the reach
of mails, causing their friends to finally give them up as dead.
Running out of funds, they were obliged to take work at what they
could get, and Osbourne sold tickets in a theatre at Helena, Montana,
and later took a job in a sawmill at Bear Gulch. At one place he and
another man bought up all the coffee to be had, and, after grinding it
up, sold it in small lots at an advanced price.

Failing in their quest for the elusive treasure, Osbourne and Orr, not
being able to cash the cheques with which they were paid for their
work, were at last compelled to borrow the money with which to make
their way back to civilization and their families.

About this time the silver-mining boom in Nevada began to ebb, and
there was an exodus of men and women, mostly discouraged and "broke,"
to San Francisco. As Mrs. Osbourne had arranged to meet her husband in
that city, she decided to join some of her friends in their removal to
the coast, and began to make preparations for the long, hard journey.
In those days little girls wore very short dresses, with several white
petticoats, like ballet dancers, and long white stockings. This dress
seemed peculiarly unsuitable for the dusty stage trip across the
desert, and Mrs. Osbourne, meeting the situation with her usual common
sense, bought a boy's suit and dressed her little girl in it. The
passengers called her "Billy," and a sensation was created among them
when, after arrival at the Occidental Hotel in the bustling city of
San Francisco, the child appeared in her own little ballet costume.

At this date, 1866, San Francisco was no longer a mere resting-place
for the birds of passage on their way to the mines, but had become a
settled town, with an air of permanency and solidity. It was then
compactly built, for it was only the advent years later of the
cable-cars that enabled it to spread out over its many hills. The
glamour of the days of the first mad rush for gold, with their
feverish alternations of mounting hope and black despair, was gone,
but in its stead had come safety and comfort, and there were few
places in the world where one co