a dead man
from beside his pan, that he hadn't time to clean up afore death took
him, there was the first color in it that had been found on the claim.
It brought in a pile o' money later.

"Later, when the real forty-niners came, men o' red blood, vigilance
committees were organized an' the camps got sort o' human. But at the
start, it was ugly. If a man didn't clean up quick, he starved. If he
did, somebody jumped his claim, or put a bullet in him. If the body of
a miner was found floatin', it was called accidental death, even if
his head was blown off, for, the sayin' used to go, 'A miner ought to
carry enough gold dust on him to sink.' Scores, aye, hundreds, died o'
gun-play.

"About the fine breed o' men that come later, the forty-niners that
crossed the whole plains o' the West from Missouri to Santa Fe an'
beyond, men that brought their women an' children in long lines o'
prairie schooners, keepin' scouts out ahead an' one each side,
fightin' famine, thirst an' redskins all the way, you won't want me to
tell you. Every American knows their story.

"But every one don't know what them trains o' gold-seekers looked
like, when they reached the diggin's! My father's told me, though.

"He's seen 'em reach the Sacramento, half-scalped an' with wounds that
never healed. He's seen swingin' at their saddles the scalp-locks o'
Indians they'd scalped theirselves. He's seen women come in with nary
one o' their men-folk left alive. He seen 'em come in crazy, never to
be sane again, after the horrors o' that trail. He's seen a man come
in safe an' untouched, after wheelin' a wheelbarrow nigh three
thousand miles. He's seen seven men an' nine women get to the
Sierras out of a party of 118, leaving 102 dead on the road.

[Illustration: THE COMING OF THE FORTY-NINERS.]

[Illustration: DAVID EGELSTON.

A Forty-Niner, and the Discoverer of Gold Hill.]

"I've heard tell, an' I believe it, that across the desert stretch a
man could ha' walked for forty miles an' put his foot on a bone at
every step. An' o' those who did reach, most o' them were so weak that
camp fever an' dysentery took 'em off like flies. A good half died at
the diggin's before they ever found a bit o' gold.

"How many o' the forty-niners died at sea? There's no tellin'. Ships
set out from all corners o' the globe. There was a wild rush from
England. That meant goin' round the Horn, an' there weren't many
steamships, then. Sailin'-ships, so rotten th