CHAPTER XII.

START FOR FOSTER’S BAR--A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL--PORTRAIT-PAINTING--FLATTERING LIKENESSES--FOSTER’S BAR--SLEEPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--CAMPING OUT--CAMP OF A FLAMING COMPANY--DANGERS OF SKETCHING--TAKEN FOR A HIGHWAYMAN, AND RAISED TO THE RANK OF COLONEL--A LONG JOURNEY FOR NOTHING--A SOIREE MUSICALE IN THE FOREST.

I arrived about dusk at a ranch called the “Grass Valley House,” situated in a forest of pines. It was a clapboard house, built round an old log-cabin which formed one corner of the building, and was now the private apartment of the landlord and his wife. I was here only six miles from Foster’s Bar, and set out for that place in the morning; but I made a mistake somewhere, and followed a wrong trail, which led me to a river, after walking six or seven miles without meeting any one of whom I could ascertain whether I was going right or not. The descent to the river was very steep, and as I went down I had misgivings that I was all wrong, and should have to come up again, but I expected at least to find some one there who could put me right. After scrambling down the best way I could, and reaching the river, I was disappointed to find nothing but the remains of an old tent; there was not even a sign of any work having been done there. The river flowed among huge masses of rock, from which the banks rose so steep and rugged, that to follow the course of the stream seemed out of the question. I thought, however, that I could distinguish marks here and there on the rocks, as if caused by travelling over them, and these I followed with considerable difficulty for about half a mile, when they stopped at a place where the blackened rocks, the remains of burned wood, and a lot of old sardine-boxes, showed that some one had been camped. Here I fancied I could make out a trail going straight up the face of the hill, on the same side of the river by which I had come down. It looked a hard road to travel, but I preferred trying it to retracing my steps, especially as I judged it would be a shorter way back to the house I had started from.

I got on very well for a short distance, but very soon lost all sign of a trail. I was determined, however, to make my way up, which I did by dint of catching hold of branches of trees and bushes; and on my hands I had to place my greatest dependence, for the loose soil was covered with large stones, which gave way under my feet, and which I could hear rolling down far below me. Sometimes I came to a bare face of rock, up which I had to work my passage by means of the crevices and projecting ledges. It was useless to consider whether more formidable obstacles were still before me; my only chance was to go ahead, for if I had attempted to go down again, I should have found the descent rather too easy, and probably have broken my neck. It was dreadfully hot, and I was carrying my blankets slung over my shoulder, which, catching on trees and rocks, impeded my progress considerably; and though I was in pretty good condition for this sort of work, I had several times to get astride of a tree and take a spell.

At last, after a great deal of scrambling and climbing, my shins barked, my clothes nearly torn off my back, and my eyes half scratched out by the bushes, completely blown, and suffocated with the heat, I arrived at a place where I considered that I had got over the worst of it, as the ascent seemed to become a little more practicable. I was dying of thirst, and would have given a very long price for a drink of water; but the nearest water I expected to find was at a spring about five miles off, which I had passed in the morning. I could not help thinking what a delightful thing a quart pot of Bass’s pale ale would be, with a lump of ice in it; then I thought I would prefer a sherry cobbler, but I could not drink that fast enough; and then it seemed that a quart pot of ale would not be enough, that I would like to drink it out of a bucket. I quaffed in imagination gigantic goblets, one after another, of all sorts of delicious fluids, but none of them did me any good; and so I concluded that I had better think of something else till I reached the spring.

The rest of the mountain was not very hard travelling, and when once on the top of the range, I struck off in a direction which I thought would hit my old trail. I very soon got on to it, and after half an hour’s walking, I found the spring, where, as the Missourians say, “you may just bet _your_ life,” I did drink.

It was about three o’clock, and I thought my safest plan was to return to the house I had started from in the morning, about six miles off, where, on my arrival, I learned that I had been misled by an Indian trail, and had travelled far out of the right direction. It was too late to make a fresh start that day, so I was doomed to pass another night here, and in the evening amused myself by sketching a train of pack-mules which had camped near the house.

I was just setting off in the morning, when two or three men, who had seen me sketching the evening before, came and asked me to take their likenesses for them. As they were very anxious about it, I made them sit down, and very soon polished them all off, improving so much on their personal appearance, that they evidently had no idea before that they were such good-looking fellows, and expressed themselves highly satisfied. As I was finishing the last one, an old fellow came in, who, seeing what was up, was seized with a violent desire to have his sweet countenance “pictur’d off” likewise, to send to his wife. It struck me that his wife must be a woman of singular taste if she ever wished to see his face again. He was just about the ugliest man I ever saw in my life. He wanted to comb his hair, poor fellow, and make himself look as presentable as possible; but I had no mercy on him, and, making him sit down as he was, I did my best to represent him about fifty per cent uglier than he really was. He was in great distress that he had not better clothes on for the occasion; so, to make up for caricaturing his features, I improved his costume, and gave him a very spicy black coat, black satin waistcoat, and very stiff stand-up collars. The fidelity of the likeness he never doubted, being so lost in admiration of his dress, that he seemed to think the face a matter of minor importance altogether.

I did not take many portraits in the mines; but, from what little experience I had, I invariably found that men of a lower class wanted to be shown in the ordinary costume of the nineteenth century--that is to say, in a coat, waistcoat, white shirt and neckcloth; while gentlemen miners were anxious to appear in character, in the most ragged style of California dress.

I went to Foster’s Bar after dinner with a man who was on his way there from Downieville, a town about thirty miles up the river. He told me that he and his partner had gone there a few months before, and had worked together for some time, when they separated, his partner joining a company which had averaged a hundred dollars a-day to each man ever since, while my friend had bought a share in another company, and, after working hard for six weeks, had not, as he expressed it, made enough to pay for his grub. Such is mining.

Foster’s Bar is a place about half a mile long, with the appearance of having slipped down off the face of the mountains, and thus formed a flat along the side of the river. The village or camp consisted of a few huts and cabins; and all around on the rocks, wherever it suited their convenience, were parties of miners camping out.

I could only see one place which purported to be a hotel, and to it I went. It was a large canvass-house, the front part of which was the bar-room, and behind it the dining-room. Alongside of the former an addition had been made as a sleeping-apartment, and here, when I felt inclined to turn in about ten o’clock, I was accommodated with a cot.

A gambling-room in San Francisco is a tolerably quiet place, where little else is heard but good music or the chinking of dollars, and where, if it were necessary, one could sleep comfortably enough. But a gambling-room in a small camp in the mines is a very different affair. There not so much ceremony is observed, and the company are rather more apt to devote themselves to the social enjoyment of drinking, quarrelling, and kicking up a row generally. In this instance the uproar beat all my previous experience, and sleeping was out of the question. The bar-room, I found, was also the gambling-room of the diggings. Four or five monte tables were in full blast, and the room was crowded with all the rowdies of the place. As the night wore on and the brandy began to tell, they seemed to be having a general fight, and I half expected to see some of them pitched through the canvass into the sleeping apartment; or perhaps pistols might be used, in which case I should have had as good a chance of being shot as any one else.

I managed to drop off asleep during a lull in the storm; but when I awoke at daylight, it was only then finally subsiding. I found that some man had broken a monte bank, and, on the strength of his good fortune, had been treating the company to an unlimited supply of brandy all night, which fully accounted for the row; but I did not fancy such sleeping-quarters, and made up my mind to camp out while I remained in those diggings.

I selected a very pretty spot at the foot of a ravine, in which was a stream of water; and, buying a tin coffee-pot and some tea and sugar, I was completely set up. There was a baker and butcher in the camp, so I had very little trouble in my cooking arrangements, having merely to boil my pot, and then raking down the fire with my foot, lay a steak on the embers.

The weather was very hot and dry; but it was getting late in the season, and I generally awoke in the morning like the flowers the Irishman sings about to Molly Bawn, “with their rosy faces wet with dew.” At least as far as the dew is concerned--for a rosy face is a thing not seen in the mines, the usual colour of men’s faces being a good standard leathery hue, a very little lighter than that of a penny-piece--all rosiness of cheek, where it ever existed, is driven out by the hot sun and dry atmosphere.

I found camping out a very pleasant way of living. With my blankets I made a first-rate awning during the day; and if I could not boast of a bed of roses, I at least had one of dahlias, for numbers of large flowers of that species grew in great profusion all round my camp, and these I was so luxurious as to pluck and strew thickly on the spot where I intended to sleep.

I remained here for about three weeks; and for two or three mornings before I left, I woke finding my blankets quite white with frost. On such occasions I was more active than usual in lighting my fire and getting my coffee-pot under a full head of steam; but as soon as ever the sun was up, the frost was immediately dispelled, and half an hour after sunrise one was glad to get into the shade.

On leaving Foster’s Bar, I went to a place a few miles up the river, where some miners were at work, who had asked me to visit their camp. The river here flowed through a narrow rocky gorge (a sort of place which, in California, is called by its Spanish name a “cañon”), and was flumed for a distance of nearly half a mile; that is to say, it was carried past in an aqueduct supported on uprights, being raised from its natural bed, which was thus laid bare and rendered capable of being worked. It was late when I arrived, and the party of miners had just stopped work for the day. Some were taking off their wet boots, and washing their faces in the river; others were lighting their pipes or cutting up tobacco; and the rest were collected round the fire, making bets as to the quantity of gold which was being dried in an old frying-pan. This was the result of their day’s work, and weighed four or five pounds. The banks of the river were so rough and precipitous that, for want of any level space on which to camp, they had been obliged to raise a platform of stone and gravel. On this stood a tent about twenty feet long, which was strewed inside with blankets, boots, hats, old newspapers, and such articles. In front of the tent was a long rough table, on each side of which a young pine-tree, with two or three legs stuck into it here and there, did duty as a bench, some of the bark having been chipped off the top side, by way of making it an easy seat. At the foot of the rocks, close to the table, an immense fire was blazing, presided over by a darky, who was busy preparing supper; for where so many men messed together, it was economy to have a professional cook, though his wages were frequently higher than those paid to a miner. A quarter of beef hung from the limb of a tree; and stowed away, in beautiful confusion, among the nooks and crannies of the rocks, were sacks, casks, and boxes containing various articles of provisions.

Within a few feet of us, and above the level of the camp, the river rushed past in its wooden bed, spinning round, as it went, a large water-wheel, by means of which a constant stream of water was pumped up from the diggings and carried off in the flume. The company consisted of eight members. They were all New Yorkers, and had been brought up to professional and mercantile pursuits. The rest of the party were their hired men, who, however, were upon a perfect social equality with their employers.

When it was time to turn in, I was shown a space on the gravelly floor of the tent, about six feet by one and a half, where I might stretch out and dream that I dwelt in marble halls. About a dozen men slept in the tent, the others lying outside on the rocks.

My intention was from this camp to go on to Downieville, about forty miles up the river; but I had first to return to Foster’s Bar for some drawing-paper which I had ordered from Sacramento.

On my way I passed a most romantic little bridge, formed by two pine trees, which had been felled so as to span a deep and thickly wooded ravine. I sat down among the bushes a short distance off the trail, and was making a sketch of the place, when presently a man came along riding on a mule. I was quite aware that I should have a very suspicious appearance to a passer-by, and I was in hopes he might not observe me. I had no object in speaking to him, especially as, had I hailed him from my ambuscade, he might have been apt to reply with his revolver.

Just as he was passing, however, and when all I could see of him was his head and shoulders, his eyes wandered over the bank at the side of the trail, and

[Illustration:

J. D. BORTHWICK DEL^{T.} M & N HANHART, IMP^T

A “FLUME” ON THE YUBA RIVER.]

he caught sight of my head looking down on him over the tops of the bushes. He gave a start, as I expected he would, and addressed me with “Good morning, Colonel.” My promotion to the rank of colonel I most probably owed to the fact that he thought it advisable, under the circumstances, to be as conciliatory as possible until he knew my intentions. I saw a good deal of the same man afterwards, but he never again raised me above the rank of captain. I replied to his salutation, and he then asked the very natural question, “What are ye a-doin of over there?” I gave an account of myself, which he did not seem to think altogether satisfactory, but, after making some remark on the weather, he passed on.

About an hour later, when I arrived at Foster’s Bar, I found him sitting in a store with some half-dozen miners, to whom he had been recounting how he had seen a man concealed in the bushes off the trail. He expressed himself as having been “awful skeered,” and said that he had his pistol out, and was thinking of shooting all the time he was speaking to me. I told him I had mine lying by my side, and would have returned the compliment, when, by way of showing me what sort of a chance I should have stood, he stuck up a card on a tree at about twenty paces, and put six balls into it one after another out of his heavy navy revolver. I confessed I could not beat such shooting as that, and was very well pleased that he had not taken it into his head to make a target of me.

It seemed that he was an express carrier, and as his partner had been robbed but a few days before, very near the place of our meeting, his suspicions of me were not at all unreasonable.

I was very desirous of seeing a friend of mine who was mining at a place about twenty miles off, so, having hired a mule for the journey, I set off early next morning, intending to return the same night. My way was through a part of the country very little travelled, and the trails were consequently very indistinct, but I got full directions how to find my way, where to leave the main trail, which side to take at a place where the trail forked, where I should cross another, and so on; also where I should pass an old cabin, a forked pine-tree, and other objects, by which I might know that I was on the right road.

The man who gave me my directions said he hardly expected that I would be able to keep the right trail. I had some doubts about it myself, but I was determined to try at all events, and for seven or eight miles I got along very well, knowing I was right by the landmarks which I had passed.

The numbers of Indian trails, however, branching off to right and left were very confusing, being not a bit less indistinct than the trail I was endeavouring to follow. At last I felt certain that I had gone wrong, but as I fancied I was not going far out of the right direction, I kept on, and shortly afterwards came upon a small camp called Toole’s Diggings. I was told here that I had only come five miles out of my way; and after dining and getting some fresh directions, I set out again. Having ridden for nearly an hour, I came to an Indian camp, situated by the side of a small stream in a very dense part of the forest. At first I could see no one but some children amusing themselves with a swing hung from a branch of an oak tree, but as I was going past, a number of Indians came running out from their brush huts. They were friendly Indians, and had picked up a few words of English from loafing about the camps of the miners. The usual style of salutation to them is, “How d’ye do?” to which they reply in the same words; but if you repeat the question, as if you really wanted to know the state of their health, they invariably answer “fuss-rate.” Accordingly, having ascertained that they were all “fuss-rate,” I mixed up a little broken English, some mongrel Spanish, and a word or two of Indian, and made inquiries as to my way. In much the same sort of language they directed me how to go; and though they seemed disposed to prolong the conversation, I very quickly bade them adieu and moved on, not being at all partial to such company.

I followed the dim trail up hill and down dale for several hours without seeing a human being, and I felt quite satisfied that I was again off my road, but I pushed on in hopes of reaching some sort of habitation before dark. At last, in travelling up the side of a small creek, just as the sun was taking leave of us, I caught sight of a log-cabin among the pine-trees. It seemed to have been quite recently built, so I was pretty sure it was inhabited, and on riding up I found two men in it, from whom I learned that I was still five miles from my destination. They recommended me to stop the night with them, as it was nearly dark, and the trail was hard enough to find by daylight.

I saw no help for it; so, after staking out the mule where he could pick some green stuff, I joined my hosts, who were just sitting down to supper. It was not a very elaborate affair--nothing but tea and ham. They apologised for the meagreness of the turn-out, and especially for the want of bread, saying that they had been away for a couple of days, and on their return found that the Indians had taken the opportunity to steal all their flour.

We made the most of what we had, however, and putting a huge log on the fire, we lighted our pipes, and my entertainers, producing two violins, favoured me with a selection of Nigger melodies.

They had been mining lately at the place which I had been trying to reach all day, and in the course of conversation I found that I had had all my trouble for nothing, as the man whom I was in search of had a few days before left the diggings for San Francisco.

The next morning I returned to Foster’s Bar, my friends putting me on a much shorter trail than the roundabout road I had travelled the day before.