Down the Mother Lode

old bricks

lived! What de

are many. L

possessions

warrior, w

y with the

uin M

usually, when the first warm rain

water, then not more than a rivulet, was deflected through flumes from the

lives, and abandoning everything to the sudden rush of the water. Their sluices, logs, flumes, water-wh

20 to 60 feet in 24 hours, in i

s of wreckage rushing by. Great logs would go down end over end; mining machinery caught in the limbs of uprooted trees; quantities of lumbe

of a Chinaman floa

go?" was shouted. John

ento-maybe San Flancisco.

he top of the old stone pie

rd time haunting it now," I laughed.

t gh

f the old bridge. The one

ar Rive

exactly which ones were guilty. It was a fine bri

floods during the winter

a mile up the river at Rattles

ut the to

ory-with a bit

anyon to a large bar on which they found among unmistakable evidences of a plundered camp both white man's and Indian's hair. A great ash heap containing calcined bones was undoub

t into the bark of an alder the name "Murderer's B

rules of such a company: "Any shareholder getting drunk during the time he should be on duty, shall pay into the common treasury of the company a fine of one ounc

ot. They were Diggers, so named on account of their habits of digging in the ground for roots, and the larva of

berries into meal with the stone mortars and pestles so commonly found through the countryside and gathered

ve brought your grub from Au

busy morning. There was a barbecue that day at the town on the other side, and a stream of people had come down th

4.00; 1 bottle pickles, $6.00; 4 fathoms rope, $5.00; 1

pocket, and returned for his noo

g set four feet from the log wall, with a hammock mattress of sacking stuffed with dried bracken stretched between them. There

lery was an iron spoon, a three-tined fork and a hunt

ll palisade driven in the shallow water at th

top, raked the ashes off some coals, and started it baking. A man on hor

lad to see you,

house again. Tired of shaking the liza

ke out a

ey say it's been do

ride back to Kitty Douglas' for me? She promised me a pie, and I need a new st

s' of the signs I've just p

t were th

made every day, by Kitty Douglas,' 'New-

ation of her house is not. She charges t

fter the meal John went to, the barbecue, imbibing rather

n donkey; a hurdy-gurdy troupe on its way to the barbecue; a stage-coach drawn by six half-broken wild horses; an old Spanish settler on a beautiful, black thoroughbred; a late arriv

iners from Australia, who were to replace the wooden "bateas" of the Mexicans

er whom Longley greeted heartil

hence came you today?" The big Frenchman handed o

New He

acram

for the North Fo

" smiled

ferently. I came across the Rockies in '32, Monsi

the bridge and hastily closed the tollgate. A band of Indians, several on

varmints!" gr

old chief. "He go the br

he China

Whiskey Bar-big pow-wow. Plenty ox,

o ford the river. That's good enough for a Digger! The

s began a guttural complaint which he sile

hose," pointing to th

u! My best pal was sent to glory in that funeral fire on

an leader slowly, "Me p

back and wade the river like

Longley ran into the tollhouse and

u go?" he cri

breast of the pier under the bridge the toll-keeper j

hate, but went sto

ougher. The toll-keeper, after a weary day, was dozing beside his candle. He did not see nor hear the stealthy forms which crept

r prisoner. They finally left him tied with his own new rope to a huge

a wil

al pow-wow of their own on the river bank near the bridge. There was

m bucks is crazy with drink, an' if I knows anything a

th the savage whoops of his ferocious enemies. Even the people living across th

r incantations, one of the most ghastly deeds ever perpetrate

vanished over the hills and across Bear river. The chief had gone home at sundown, and it was as impo

years; a monument enduring long after the Digger Indians are gone off the face of the earth, as thou

Bob of Sn