A REMINISCENCE. 



died. The chap felt so thankful like, that he give us a slip of paper with a lot ol 

 figgers and marks on it, and explained that if we'd follow the directions there, arter 

 reaching a certain part of the Sierra Nevada, we'd strike it rich. There was plenty 

 of gold dust, and it wouldn't take us long to scoop in enough to buy out the bigger 

 part of 'Frisco. 



" Well, arter the poor miner was shoved under ground, Bill and me got ready 

 to look into the matter. I reasoned that we was so blamed poor that we couldn't 

 get any poorer, so that if we made a miss of it, we wouldn't be any worse off than 

 we was afore we started. 



" The upshot of all this speculatin' was that at the end of a month we was close 

 to the hidden gold mine. We each had a mule, but we concluded that, if we struck 

 a pile of the dust, we'd cache it and then come back with a big enough drove of 

 mules to carry it to the mint in 'Frisco. 



" To tell the truth, Bill didn't seem to have as much faith in the thing as I did, 

 and he insisted that we should prospect while we was on our way there : that was 

 the reason why we was so long in getting fairly into the Sierras. 



" As near as I can figger, we couldn't have been more than twenty miles from 

 the spot, when we went into camp, in one of the wildest places I ever set foot on. 



" It was early in the afternoon, and we was as hungry as ' get out.' Bill agreed 

 to start the fire and put the camp in shape, while I set off to hunt supper. Ante- 

 lope, elk and deer was plenty, and I was sure of shooting all I wanted without long 

 hunting. 



" Howsumever, the animals was so shy that it was a full hour afore I got a shot 

 at one of the critters, and then he give me such a long run that I got mad and let 

 him go. He had led me a good distance up among the rocks, into one of the wildest 

 places I ever seen. It was right on a high precipice that overhung a deep stream, 

 a long ways below, which made me fairly dizzy when I looked down at the water. 



" I wasn't very good-natured, you may depend, when I turned about to hunt for 

 other game, but all thoughts of my disappointment were knocked out of my head 

 when, after walking a few yards, I found myself face to face with an Old Ephraim, 

 as big as Samson, that old grizzly Adams used to show m Barnum's Museum. 



" That was the first time I had ever looked on the critter, though I was in a 

 region where they was quite plenty, and you needn't wonder when I tell you that it 

 fairly knocked my breath from me for a minute or two. 



" He was standing right in my path, as I wanted to leave the high place among 

 the rocks, though it looked as if there was a chance for an active young gentleman 

 like me to dash around him. 



" I had a good gun with me, but it wasn't a Winchester. It was a single-shot 

 breech-loader, and I knowed how to handle it pretty well. I reckoned that one 

 bullet, when I had the chance to take good aim, was enough to settle the hash of 

 any critter, whether he was Old Ephraim or not, and, as the weapon was ready for 

 use, I can't say that I felt shaky at looking him in the eye, with only about fifty 

 yards between us. 



