The drovers had found two other men who wanted to go with them and help
drive the horses for their board. I put my blanket on under the saddle,
packed my little sack of meat and crackers on behind, and when I was in
the saddle with my gun before me I considered I was pretty well fixed
and able to make my way against almost anything. I said to myself that
the only way now to keep me from getting to the gold mines was to kill
me. I felt that there was not a mountain so high I could not climb, and
no desert so wide and dry that I could not cross it. I had walked and
starved and choked and lived through it, and now I felt so strong and
brave I could do it again--any way to reach the gold mines and get some
of the "dust."
I had not much idea how the gold from the mines looked. Everybody called
it gold dust, and that conveyed an idea to me that it was fine as flour,
but how to catch it I did not know. I knew other people found a way to
get it, and I knew I could learn if any body could. It was a great
longing that came to me to see some of the yellow dust in its native
state, before it had been through the mint.
At the last meal I took at the house there were only a few at the table.
Among them was a well dressed Californian who evidently did not greatly
fancy American cooking, but got along very well till Mrs. Brier brought
around the dessert, a sort of duff. This the Californian tasted a few
times and then laid down his spoon saying it was no bueno, and some
other words I did not then understand, but afterward learned that they
meant "too much grease.
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