IN THE MINING DISTRICT 235 



six miles, before darkness set in. Without delay we took 

 again to the road, going as fast as our tired animals could 

 travel over mountains and along precipices that made 

 one dizzy. 



Our road— or to be more correct the ground— because 

 one cannot speak of a road where there appears only hero 

 and there the faint track of a single wagon— the ground 

 was so thoroughly drenched by melted snow that every 

 now and then the wheels would sink down to the hubs, 

 and the oxen to above their knees. We all had a hard 

 time of it; the constant unloading and reloading, the lift- 

 ing, pulling, pushing, tripping and stopping of the 

 wagon, would have kept busy a crew as large again as 

 we were. Later than we expected, but yet an hour before 

 sundown, and without any damage to our team, we 

 reached "Deadwood House." Here we were told that 

 thus far in this year no team had attempted to go to 

 Grass Valley, and that we certainly would not be able to 

 get there this evening, if at all. Rothrock's motto, how- 

 ever, in true California style was "up and doing;" he 

 insisted upon going on, and so, after we had taken a stiff 

 drink of whiskey and lighted our pipes anew, on we went 

 ahead. 



Grass Valley, the town of that name, is distant from 

 Deadwood about three miles, as I said before, while the 

 valley itself begins just one mile beyond Deadwood. 

 As we had been told here, we lost immediately after 

 starting even the slightest trace of the road; and nobody 

 has an idea what it means to travel with an ox team 

 where there is no road, not even a trail, unless he has 

 tried it. We had our hands full, now cutting through 

 snowdrifts 5 or 6 feet high, then rolling large boulders 

 out of the way; here we get mired down and we have to 

 unload; the oxen strain every muscle and we lift and 

 push to get the empty wagon again on solid ground; 

 then we load up again and immediately afterwards we 

 run into another snowdrift, where the wagon goes down 

 again to the hubs; the snow is piled up before the dash- 

 board, like the water before a swift sailing ship; but our 



