LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 47 



morning the prisoners were taken out and tried before a Justice of Peace, 

 and they acknowledged being escaped convicts and had stolen the horses 

 to get away on. They said they had tried on foot but thought they could 

 make better headway on horse-back. They were sent back to San Quentin 

 and the sheriff took the horses to their rightful owners and the only simple 

 thing in the whole affair was, we never put in a claim for the reward which 

 we were entitled to, fifty dollars each. I could mention many similar Inci- 

 dents but this is about a sample. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Mining excitement broke out away up in British Columbia at the head- 

 waters of Frazer River, called the Cariboo Mines and there was a great 

 rush to that place in the spring of 1862. Thousands were going and I, like 

 many others, took the fever also. There were four of us started in com- 

 pany together from San Francisco. There was nothing startling or out of 

 the usual happenings common to a sea voyage and we landed at Victoria, 

 our first landing, all in good condition, of course all glad to get ashore, 

 and took the first boat out-bound for the Frazer River. As we entered the 

 Frazer, we found the current very swift in places; some places you could 

 hardly tell whether the boat was making any headway or not, but we finally 

 made Port Douglas, that was as far as boats could run. From there we had 

 three hundred miles of land travel as it was the general starting point for 

 the mines, and everything had to be packed either by mules or men, in fact 

 all the men were loaded as well as the mules. We bought a little mule to 

 help us do the packing as everybody and everything was loaded. Some com- 

 pany had shipped up to this point a band of camels, they thought they 

 would just be the thing, but proved to be perfectly worthless as they will 

 not go in the mud, will lie right down and they could do nothing with them. 

 I heard afterwards, that they were taken to Mexico and turned loose there 

 and that they became wild and had increased into many hundreds, but I 

 wouldn't vouch for the truth of that. After getting our packs all arranged, 

 we started out with our little mule on our three hundred mile hike, over the 

 road or rather trail, for it was only a pack trail, vehicles of any kind not 

 having as yet penetrated that part of the counrty. It rained almost con- 

 stantly and the whole country seemed to be flooded with water and the only 

 way we had to keep above water at sleeping time was to cut fine boughs and 

 lug down carefully the coarser ones in the bottom and the finer ones on 

 top, and in that way could make a comfortable bed even if the water was 

 running in rivulets underneath, which was often the case. 



Some days our little mule would mire down a dozen times a day; he 

 soon got cunning and would not try to help himself until the pack was all 

 taken off. There was a foot bridge across a river; we had to cross at a 

 toll of one dollar each and the bridge tender said there had been ten thous- 

 ands crossed ahead of us. We finally arrived at Antler Creek, the first 

 mining camp we struck and it was twelve miles over to Williams Creek, 

 but we thought best to push on over there over a very high mountain. That 

 was a very hard pull on us as we had to sell our mule as there had not 

 been any mules taken over the mountain this spring and we were told we 

 could not get ours along and when we came to travel over there we knew 



