Notes and Correspondence 



341 



the first people we laid eyes on from the time we left Independence, ex- 

 cept for Prof. Brewer and his party of exploring scientists. These 

 placer mines down near the San Joaquin Valley were not showing up 

 well. We, ourselves, tried it out and cleaned up only thirty-eight cents, 

 so we decided to strike out to the northeast. We went north by the old 

 Jackson ranch into Squaw Flat, across Squaw Flat and up into the 

 mountains until we struck the South Fork of Joaquin River about 35 

 or 40 miles east from Middleton, an old mining camp on the San Joa- 

 quin. Then we followed the river, you might say, to its very head in 

 the main Sierra Nevada. There we had for dinner the last of our stock 

 of provisions. Beveridge and I took our pans and went over to a red 

 hill where we got a good prospect; but we were out of grub. We struck 

 east, hoping to find a way over the Sierras and down again into Owen's 

 Valley, but we could not get any further east — got into the main moun- 

 tains and then had to back out and work south. We worked south until 

 we got down on to the North Fork of King's River. It was a terrific 

 task working around granite cliffs and over great boulders with our 

 horses. Beveridge and I got down on to the North Fork one day about 

 sun-down with the animals. The rest of the boys had gone ahead and 

 had been fishing all day, but could not catch any. Beveridge and I com- 

 ing into camp with the horses asked the boys what they had got for us 

 to eat, and they pointed up to a rattlesnake hanging on a limb that they 

 had skinned for supper for us. I looked at John and asked him what 

 he thought of it. I said, "It looks pretty tough," and John says, "Yes, 

 I can't go that." Just while we were talking it over, two grouse lit in 

 a tree. I grabbed the shot gun and brought down both of them. We 

 made a little fire and after awhile scraped the fire away, dug a hole in 

 the hot sand and put in the two grouse just as they were, feathers and 

 all, piling the ashes and fire on the top of them. After about two and a 

 half hours, we took them out and they were done to a turn, John Bev- 

 eridge ate one of the grouse and I ate the other. Then we held a coun- 

 cil and the next day slaughtered one of the horses. It was John Bever- 

 idge's horse, called "General Grant," an old horse about twenty-five 

 years old. We made a rack out of green willows and jerked a lot of 

 him and roasted a lot more of him in front of a big log fire. After we 

 got everything ready we divided up the jerky and roast meat in our 

 haversacks and struck south. We picked our way along with the ani- 

 mals, but the country kept getting rougher and rougher — deep canons 

 and precipices, a terribly rough, bouldery country — all bare granite. One 

 of our party got part way down a cliff where he could neither get up 

 nor down, and we had to tie our blankets together and let them down 

 and pull him up. It was a several thousand-foot drop down below 

 where he was on the cliff. We never could understand how he got down 

 there. For two days we tried to work south. Finally we got into a 

 cafion full of boulders, where we could neither get our horses one way 

 or the other. They were so worn out and hungry that we finally killed 



