CHAPTER XXIII.

In the fall of 1852, my brother was in the mines, on the north fork of the Yuba, about one hundred miles above Marysville. As the rainy season was commencing, and knowing his claims to be on the river, where they could not be worked except in the dry season, I was daily expecting him to arrive in Marysville, as he had written to that effect; yet he came not. Daily I heard accounts of large quantities of snow falling; and it finally fell to such a depth, that all communication with the settlements in the mountains was cut off before the winter’s supply of provisions had been transported thither. Fears were entertained that the mountain population would suffer incredibly for the want of food; and so they did. Finally, a straggling, emaciated, exhausted party arrived in town from Downieville, which is eighty miles distant from Marysville.

Fifty miles of the route they had traversed over snow, which lay to the depth of ten and fifteen feet, and part of the time sinking, at every step, up to their arm-pits in it. Two or three of their number had given out and died on the way. The reports they brought were dismal in the extreme. They said the entire male population would be obliged to leave Downieville, and get to Marysville, if possible, or die in the attempt, as there were only provisions enough in town when they left to supply the women and children.

What anxiety I felt on my brother’s account, knowing that he must depend upon Downieville for his supplies! No tidings whatever could I obtain of him, and did not for four months. During this time, remnants of parties were arriving, completely exhausted, and reporting great distress in the mountains. At the expiration of that time, the express-men opened for themselves a passage through the snow. Then I received a letter, stating the following particulars:

He had made every preparation for leaving his log cabin as soon as there was any appearance of snow, when one of his partners (he had two) was violently seized with the mountain fever. Then came the first fall of snow. What could they do? They could not leave him to die alone, and it was impossible to move him. For one month he was constantly delirious. He had no physician to attend him, and there he lay, day and night, talking to his mother and friends at home, in happy unconsciousness of his deplorable situation. The snow fell until it lay to the depth of fifteen feet.

Downieville was twenty miles distant, and thither one of them must go to obtain provisions; for they were entirely destitute of everything in the eatable line, and almost destitute of money. They had sent their gold to Marysville the day before the partner was taken sick, reserving only sufficient to defray their expenses down.

My brother started to go to Downieville, previously assisting his partner to tie the sick man on to his pallet of straw; for, in moments of violent delirium, one person could not compete with him in strength.

In an exhausted state he reached Downieville, and found provisions very scarce, and dear as gold dust. For ham he paid eighty cents per pound; for flour, one dollar and a half per pound; and everything in a like proportion. For one ten pounds of flour, which he bought during the winter, he paid twenty-five dollars. He wanted to get some corn meal to make gruel for the sick man, and succeeded in getting one pound, for which he paid the exorbitant sum of two dollars.

With a back-load of provisions--which weighed sixty-one pounds, and cost one hundred dollars--he started back. Several times, on the way, he felt as if he should never live to reach the little cabin; but he finally arrived there. “Oh,” said he, “what dreary days and nights we passed in that log cabin, listening to the moanings of the sick man, whom we were hourly expecting to breathe his last, surrounded and hemmed in by impassable barriers of snow! We could not wile away the time evenings by reading, for we had no oil or candles: a little grease in a tin plate, with a rag in it, was all we had to light in case of emergency. Our cabin was completely covered with snow. We kept a hole open from the door up to the surface. Mornings, upon going out, the foot-prints of large grisly bears would be all around in the snow, over the top of the cabin. When we had consumed all the provisions which I had taken up, we both started again for more, leaving the sick man alone; but he was wholly unconscious, and never knew of our absence. What little we could get this time was even higher than before; and the climate had a tendency to give us such good appetites. We boiled those ham bones until they were as white as polished ivory. For two or three days we subsisted upon water-gruel.

“I then started again for Downieville, so hungry and faint, I thought I should never reach there. I had no money; but a trader in Downieville, who was acquainted with my circumstances, kindly offered to furnish me with provisions, upon credit. As I was passing a hotel, I smelled the dinner, and stepped upon the stoop, wishing--oh, how earnestly!--that I had the wherewithal to procure a dinner. But I was ‘flat broke,’ as the saying is there, when one is out of funds. Presently I was accosted by a fellow who once mined with me in the country. Said he, ‘What is the matter, Bryant? What makes you look so down-hearted? Are you flat broke?’--‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and starving, besides.’--Not while I have the color,’ said he, and put five dollars into my hand. With this I bought myself a good dinner; and it was a wonder I survived it, for I assure you I did eat some.

“Thus we lived on for four long, weary months. The fever settled in the sick man’s toes, and they all decayed. Finally, he began to convalesce; but it was six months from the time he was taken with the fever before he was able to walk. How grateful he felt to us, who had almost sacrificed our lives to stay by and nurse him! He would cry, and say, ‘If I am ever worth a fortune, you shall share it with me.’ Before I left the country, he had been able to earn a little money. He came to see me, and proffered the whole, as he said, to compensate, in a measure, for my kindness to him. Of course, I refused to accept of one dollar; for he then looked too feeble to work.

“During all these winter months, we never shot but one deer; and then we feasted! The snow lay to such a depth, we could not go hunting; and game was very scarce, too.

“The provisions which we consumed during three months amounted to five hundred dollars, and then never had as much as would satisfy our appetites at any one meal.”

My brother described the snow-slides in the mountains as grand and frightful. A body of snow would commence rolling at the summit of a mountain, collecting and increasing in size as it rolled, until it came with such velocity, and in such a mass, that it would snap off large trees in its descent as easily as if they had been whip-sticks. One could hear the rushing, roaring sound it made, for miles. It is necessary to build their cabins in such a position that they will not be in danger of annihilation from these slides. Cabins have been swept away, and the inmates killed, by snow-slides.

As soon as the rocks around the cabin began to get bare, they began to crevice for gold. One night, while his partner was preparing supper, my brother took out seventeen dollars (in little lumps) with a crevicing-spoon.

A lady once told me, who had lived in the mountains, that every day, after her housework was done up, she would take her crevicing-spoon, and go out among the rocks searching for gold. She resided there one year, and, during that time, had collected five hundred dollars in that way.

When the spring opened, my brother concluded to remain through the dry season, and for eighteen months he was a dweller in those mountain solitudes, and not once during that time visiting the valley. In his rambles, one day, he found the skeleton of a human being. What sad reflections the sight of those bones called up! He dug a grave, and buried them.

The grisly bears were quite plenty around them; and one day, while they were out mining, “Old Bruin” made a descent into their cabin, helping himself to everything the place contained, and overturning tin pans, pots, and kettles, and everything within his reach. He swallowed all their butter, for which they had paid one dollar and a half per pound, and marched off, no doubt delighted with the feast he had enjoyed at the expense of the poor miners. When they returned, tired and hungry, to their shanty, to prepare their frugal meal, they were struck with the utmost consternation at beholding the havoc made within,--by whom, they readily conjectured, for there were his large footprints, very conspicuous. Then there was no alternative but to go, tired as they were, to Downieville, (twenty miles,) and back up more provisions. Then they baited old Bruin with a piece of meat, loaded their guns, and lay in wait for him all day and night; but he never came again. Whether his digestive organs were incapable of performing the necessary functions after such an expensive feast, or whether he was so cunning as to suspect they would watch for his return, they never knew.

At one time an old hunter came to their cabin with his dog, and reported himself to be very expert at killing grislys. They took their guns, and accompanied him. They soon routed an enormously large bear, whose roar seemed to shake the earth. He first turned his attention to the dog, which appeared terribly frightened, and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. Then he turned upon the brave hunters, who quickly followed the example of the dog. They fled to some tall trees, upon which there was not a limb for twenty or thirty feet from the base. They exerted every faculty to shin up those naked trunks. My brother, who was not a little frightened, thought that, at least, he was twenty feet from the ground, when, upon looking down, he found he was not more than five. How he redoubled his efforts! for the bear was making after them at a furious rate. After clearing the field of his antagonists, and giving two or three tremendous roars in honor of victory, he marched off into the surrounding forest. After this, they were engaged in several more successful bear-hunts.

At one time, he was mining on Cañon Creek, and had occasion to cross the mountains to Slate Range. Many of these mountains are perennially covered with snow. When travelling in the mountains, clothes more than you have on your back are burdensome and unnecessary.

After going a short distance from the camp, he hung an overcoat on the limb of a tree, set his carpet-bag at the foot of it, and buried what gold he had with him at a short distance from the tree, carefully noting the spot. He then pursued his journey. Upon arriving at his destination, his mining operations detained him there eight months. When he returned, he found his coat hanging upon the same limb; his carpet-bag was unmolested; and he found his gold just as he had left it. Clothes, in the mountains, are no temptation to a person’s cupidity, if he has a suit on his back.

At one time, in company with two or three others, started to go from one mining locality to another. They were obliged to camp out for four nights upon the snow; and in some of the deep ravines, which were filled by the sliding of the snow into them, they judged it to be at least fifty feet in depth. Nights, they would roll themselves in their blankets, and lie down upon the snow, with nought above them but the blue dome of the star-lighted heavens, and sleep as soundly, and be visited by dreams as sweet, as ever blessed their midnight slumbers in nicely carpeted chambers, on beds of down.