Since he had been sick I had paid him all the
attention I could, and he gave me all the praise I deserved, now that he
was getting to feel himself again.
At Sacramento we changed to another boat bound for Marysville, which
place we reached without special incident. Here we invested in a
four-ounce donkey, that is, we paid four ounces of gold for him, just an
ounce apiece for four of us--W.L. Manley, Robert McCloud, Lyman Ross and
John Briggs. We piled our blankets in a pack upon the gentle, four-ounce
donkey, and added a little tea and coffee, dried beef and bread, then
started for the Yuba River, ourselves on foot. We crossed the river at
Park's Bar, then went up the ridge by way of Nigger Tent, came down to
the river again at Goodyear Bar, then up the stream to Downieville. This
town was named after John Downie, a worthless drunkard. I remember that
he once reformed, but again back-slid and died a drunkard's death.
We found this a lively mining town about sixty miles above Marysville,
on the north fork of the Yuba River, and only reached by a pack trail,
but everything was flush here, even four aces. The location was a
veritable Hole-in-the-Ground, for the mountains around were very high,
and some of them wore their caps of snow all summer, particularly those
on the east. The gold dust we found here was coarser than it was where I
worked before, down south on the Merced River. Before I came to
California I always supposed that gold dust was really dust, and about
as fine as flour.
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