i62 ELDORADO 



California, cried out 'Oro! Oro!' We were disap- 

 pointed enough at this discovery and supposed that the 

 work-people had been watching our movements, al- 

 thougli we thought we had taken every precaution 

 against being observed by them. I heard afterwards 

 that one of them, a Kentuckian, had dogged us about 

 and that looking on the ground to see if he could dis- 

 cover what we were in search of he had lighted on 

 some flakes of gold himself. The next day I rode 

 back to the fort, organized a laboring party, set the 

 carpenters to work on a few necessary matters, and 

 the next day accompanied them to a point of the fork 

 where they encamped for the night. By the following 

 morning I had a party of fifty Indians fairly at work. 

 The way we first managed was to shovel the soil into 

 small buckets or into some of our famous Indian 

 baskets ; then wash all the light earth out, and pick 

 away the stones. After this we dried the sand on 

 pieces of canvas and with long reeds blew away all but 

 the gold. I have now some rude machines in use and 

 upwards of one hundred men employed, chiefly In- 

 dians, who are well fed and who are allowed whisky 

 three times a day. The report soon spread. Some 

 of the gold was sent to San Francisco and crowds of 

 people flocked to the diggings. Added to this a large 

 emigrant party of Mormons entered California across 

 the mountains just as the affair was made known. 

 They halted at once and set to work on a spot some 

 thirty miles from here where a few of them still re- 

 main. There are fully eight hundred men at work 

 altogether and probably three hundred more passing 

 backwards and forwards between here and the mines. 

 At first I imagined that the gold would soon be ex- 



