d some in books, an' they was wilder yet; an' I've seen
some in the movies, an' they was a crime!

"Not but what them days wasn't tough! They was! The crowds what hit
the minin' camps o' the Sierras in the fifties was out for gold an'
nothin' else, an' they didn't much care how they got it. Father, he
was a forty-niner himself, an' he was a rough un if anything got in
his way. But he had more sense'n most, an', without any book-l'arnin'
to speak of, he knew a heap about gold. If he'd been alive when I made
my strike, old as he was, he'd ha' gone there, an' he'd ha' got there,
too.

"I come o' Mormon stock, I do. My grand-pap, he made the trail to Salt
Lake City wi' Brigham Young. Grandma, she used a rifle to defend the
home camp, when the Illinois and Indiana folk came to massacre the
women an' children, after the men were gone. Judgin' from what I've
heard about her shootin', there wasn't many bullets wasted. Some o'
these days, when you ain't got nothin' better to do, I'll tell you the
story o' my grand-pap. He come to be one o' the Danites, later.[4]

[Footnote 4: For the relation of the Mormons and the Danites to the
forty-niners and the emigrant trains going west, see the author's "The
Book of Cowboys."]

"You'll know the story o' Sutter's Mill, likely, Mr. Owens,"--Jim
returned to the "Mr." in Clem's presence,--"but Clem, he don't know
nothin' about it, an' he ought to be put wise if he's goin' to take a
hand in this game.

"It all come about in queer fashion, a good deal like it did in
Australia, as Mr. Owens was a-tellin' me a few days ago. The first
signs o' gold was found on the Americanos River, which runs into the
Sacramento. Found by accident, they was, too.

"There was a chap out them parts--an Indian-fighter--Cap'n Sutter by
name. He owned a lot o' land an' used to run cattle in a small way,
for the time I'm tellin' about was long afore the days o' the cowboys
an' the ol' Texas-Drive trail.[5] This Sutter had a foreman called
James W. Marshall, who, besides his reg'lar job o' handlin' cattle an'
greasers, looked after the runnin' of a one-horse saw-mill on the
Americanos. It was an over-shot water-wheel mill, an' jest roughly
chucked together.

[Footnote 5: For the history of the Texas trail and the winning of the
West for the United States, see the author's "The Book of Cowboys."]

"By-'n'-by Marshall begin to notice that the ol' mill wasn't workin'
any too good. A lot o' sand an' gravel had co