One glowing summer's day, in the pleasant month of June, two travellers might have been seen slowly winding along the narrow path that led from Ford's Bar, on the Middle Fork of the American River, to Big Bar, eight miles above. It needed but a glance at the arms and equipment of the first, to see that he was a knight of distinguished rank, who was now, doubtless, wandering over the world in search of adventures. The light cap that he wore on the back of his head, showed crisp-curling black hair, sparkling eyes, united with a rather thoughtful and grave expression, as of one equally skilled in counsel and in fight. His helmet, which he carried slung over his left shoulder, was of very unusual dimensions, and apparently made of burnished copper, that fairly dazzled the eyes of the beholder as it glinted back the rays of the morning sun.

If any one, however, had taken the trouble to peep into this resplendent headpiece, he would have seen enough to satisfy him that this exalted personage was now bent on some peaceful mission, and had not the most remote fears of any encounter. Potatoes and onions, with a great piece of ancient Dutch cheese, a goodly lump of salt pork, and a great variety of smaller articles, all of the like harmless and soft-hearted temper, reposed quietly in its warm belly, as the lion, in early days, dandled the kid. The squire, who, according to the custom of the time, walked a few paces in the rear, carried, with no little difficulty, the remainder of his master's armour. It consisted of a puzzling pair of large brass tubes, somewhat in shape resembling an opera-glass; but the experienced observer had no difficulty in determining at once their dangerous and destructive nature. They were the invention of a very profound philosopher, who proposed to destroy his enemies without the effusion of blood, by cunningly sucking the breath out of their body. The squire carried this cumbrous implement of destruction astride on his shoulders, and in his right hand grasped a weapon more suited to his degree, and of the same description as was erewhile employed by that distinguished jester, the Saxon Wamba, in his renowned combat with Isaac the Jew.

A stout pair of blankets, strapped firmly to his back, completed the squire's equipment, and showed that he was ready at any time, if need were, to bivouac in the open air.

The sun had sunk behind the western hills—the broad shadow had slid across the river and crept noiselessly up the steep face of the mountain on their right; but still our travellers toiled on, now dipping their dusty, burning feet in the cooling flood, now balancing cautiously along the narrow path, where a single false step would have been destruction, and where one resolute man could have held the pass against a thousand foes. The stars were already appearing in the darkened sky, when they at last halted beneath a sombre pine that had thrust its roots deep in among the rocks.

The place seemed well chosen to guard against attack; on one side was the river shutting off all approach in that direction; behind them was a rugged mountain which no one in his senses would think of descending; and on either hand the narrow path rendered all access almost equally difficult. The knight disencumbered himself of his helmet, and laid it, with due regard to its precious contents, carefully in a hollow beside him; the squire did the same with his breath-compelling weapon, and after a frugal supper of bread and cheese they stretched themselves on the smoothest part of the rock, and were soon fast asleep.

All this might have been seen, dear reader, and that too without any greater stress of imagination than is usually demanded on similar occasions; though strict veracity, that veracity that forms so pleasing and fundamental a part of the character of bully Bottom, may require a little explanation.

In good sooth then, our knight was no knight at all, but simple Ethan Allen, not of revolutionary memory, but one of his numerous descendants, degenerated from that rantipole, thundering, Ticonderoga hero into a soft-tongued, smooth-faced varlet, who hated the British by hereditary right, and still swore by the Continental Congress. I had the honour of being his humble companion, and the deadly mischief on my aching shoulders was neither more nor less than the ponderous air-pumps that were to furnish a substitute for gills in our proposed aquatic incursions.

Having given this brief word of caution, we will continue our narrative in the more sober style befitting a grave and discreet chronicler. We had expected to find the rest of our companions awaiting us at the appointed place of meeting; but they did not make their appearance till the next morning, when we at once set about making the necessary preparations for putting the machine in operation.

From one to two hundred pounds of shot were required to overcome the buoyancy of the armour; and as this could not be obtained nearer than Coloma, Allen started alone on this errand, leaving to the rest of us the work of constructing a raft. Incredible as it may seem, the preliminary operations necessary to this simple undertaking occupied us a whole week; the only trees fit for the purpose grew high up on the mountain, and when we had at last succeeded in felling them, the still more arduous task remained of getting them safely down to the river's brink. The easiest and most natural method was to set them in motion by crowbars and long levers, when their own momentum would without any further trouble on our part carry them crashing down the steep; but besides the danger of losing them altogether by their plunging into the river, their ungovernable rage and impetuosity would, in case of their striking any sufficient obstacle, dash them into a hundred pieces. We were accordingly compelled to proceed with the utmost caution, and let them down gradually by a rope passed once or twice round a tree, in the same way that whalemen check the fierce flight of their victim in his frenzied efforts to escape.

This being at length accomplished, we proceeded to throw them into the river, when one after another, as fast as they reached the water, sunk like a stone beneath the surface, and settling cosily side by side at the bottom, left us staring at each other with a ludicrous mixture of amazement and indignation. Greater amaze could hardly have seized the followers of the pious Eneas when their ships threatened with hostile flames plunged goddesses of the sea beneath the waves. There was no time to be lost, however, in useless lamentation; and finding by this decisive experiment that live timber knew too much to swim, we immediately commenced a search for some drier and more stupid material. Some distance above our claim we found lodged among the jagged rocks where it had been left by some previous freshet, a mighty pine bleached as dry and white as the thigh bone of some antediluvian monster. Its spongy elastic fibre long set at defiance our united efforts, but having at last cut it into logs of a convenient length, we rolled them into the water, and guided them down the river by long ropes, the rapidity of the current rendering the task as difficult as the steepness of the hill had done before, and often threatening to wrest the log entirely from our control.

It was usual for the miners to rest several hours during the heat of the day; but though our work was far more laborious, our impatience to finish this undertaking hardly permitted us to relax our efforts for a moment. Several days while we were thus occupied, the mercury stood at 105° in the shade and the reader can but faintly imagine what we endured standing on burning rocks, exposed to the fierce reflection from the water, and at the same time obliged to exert our energies to the utmost in overcoming the stupid obstinacy of large sticks of timber, of all labour the most humiliating and discouraging.

From six till seven we toiled without intermission, stopping only an hour at noon for dinner, and sleeping in the open air, on the softest rocks, with no other canopy than the branches of a spreading oak, through whose scanty foliage I could see the stars winking and blinking in my face.

We found little time for conversation during the day, and it might be supposed that we should have had little inclination for it at night; but weary as I was, I could not resist the garrulity of one of my companions, whose amusing narrative, continued night after night, might well sustain a comparison with the more classic stories of Scheherezade.

Passing over the earlier parts of his history in which, as with other distinguished characters, his birth, whooping cough, and measles occupied the principal portion, we come to the time when the young Weaver, for such he was entitled, first displayed his ardent love of heroic adventure by running away from home, and embarking in a long and hazardous voyage in pursuit of mackerel.

This was the turning point in his life; and from this apparently unimportant step the skilful historian will easy trace all his subsequent career—all those striking ideosyncracies that, whether they betrayed the greatness or the weakness of his character, equally distinguished him from the mass of ordinary men around him.

The fishy odour of that first voyage still lingered about his person, as grateful to his senses as to others the bank of violets where they had played in childhood. He loved to talk of barrels and of quintals, of schools of mackerel and of cod; till in his flowing figures the little fishing smack assumed the state and importance of some mighty whaler, and his puny prey was invested with all the terrors of Leviathan.

No such mackerel were ever seen in these degenerate days, and no such storms as he then encountered. When, in process of years, the greater love of ease, and lessening spirit of adventure induced him, yet unwillingly, to give up what had hitherto been his favourite pastime, he manifested his icthyological propensities and the strength of early associations, by declining his affections upon an oyster. In the society of those amiable and suggestive testacea he passed many grateful hours, sailing the while in fancy o'er his much-loved Banks of Newfoundland, or watching the dying flounderings of some gigantic cod that had erewhile yielded to his victorious hook.

His observations on life and manners in the metropolis of New England, had about them the same smack of fishy sagacity, plainly declaring from what source his philosophy had been derived.

"Boston," said he, with a melancholy shake of the head at the tender recollection of some earlier passages in his varied experience, "Boston, I will allow, is a mighty dangerous place for a man to be out o' nights: yet, somehow'r other, I never felt very ticklish about it, though they know't I was in the habit of carrying about considerable sums o' money. Many and many's the time 'at I've been through some o' the very worst places in the city, with as much as a gallon or two of iseters, and sometimes the money for 'em, too; but nobody ever offered to touch me—I s'pose acause they'd a kind o' stinking notion 'at I'd be likely to prove an ugly customer.

"The gentleman as I was a working with used ollus to send me to carry the iseters; ''cause,' says he, 'Weaver's a man as can be depended on, and what he says he'll do, he'll do.' I remember one day, when we was all-fired busy—seems to me folks in Boston never ate so many iseters before—a gentleman was going to have a large party, and he sent for me to come and help. Boss, 'cause we was so busy, you know, was agoing to send somebody else; but the gentleman, he says, says he, 'I don't want nobody but Weaver.' So I went, and I was out in the kitchen a opening iseters for dear life, when the gentleman he came out, and asked me, why I didn't go in and see the folks. So, bimeby, I went in—I had on my best close, and looked about as smart as any on 'em—and his wife and daughters—he had four, and they was none o' yer milk-an'-water things either—they said, 'how d'ye do, Mr. Weaver? We are very glad to see you.' So I told 'em I was very glad to see them; and then I sat down and talked awhile, and bimeby somebody said sumthin' about iseters—so I began, and told 'em all I knew about it, and all about my going a-mackereling, and they was so interested, you never see.

"And then, sich a supper as they had! It was just the beatimost thing I ever did see; for they was real tip-top folks, and no mistake—and, as for the iseters, you may be sure, I looked out for them myself.

"So, after the party was over, and the folks was going home, the gentleman steps up to me, before 'em all, as perlite as could be, and says, says he, 'we're very much obliged to you, Mr Weaver; I really don't know how we should ha' got along without you:' and then he offered to pay me for the iseters; but I wan't agoing to do no sich thing. 'Not a cent,' says I, 'not a cent;' for I thought 'twould be real shabby to go to his party, and then make him pay for the iseters. So he put the money back into his pocket, and everybody laughed and looked so tickled, 'at I knowed I'd done just about the right thing. And then he said, he hoped he should have the pleasure—I misremember the exact words, but that's near enough—of seeing me again at his house, some time'r other, and so I mean he shall; for, as soon as ever I git ten thousand dollars, I'm going straight back to Boston, and I mean to call on him the very first thing.

"And, then, I'm going to the old shop where I used to work; and, first, I shall call for a dozen raw—and then I shall call for a dozen fried—and then for an out-and-out stew; and then! I'll walk up to the counter, and pay 'm in gold dust! won't that make 'em stare?"

When the cunning Weaver had woven so much of his fantastic web, he invariably turned over and went to sleep—very wisely, as I thought; for, surely, no wit of man could blow a more airy and buoyant bubble than that on which, balloon-like, he now set sail for the land of dreams.

The morning brought with it less seductive realities. For breakfast we had, at first, coffee without sugar—the sugar and pepper having become too intimately blended during their rough journey to answer their legitimate purpose—ship biscuit, with a bit of pork or bacon, and, now and then, a dish of stewed beans. After living this way a week, we obtained a keg of butter and a small quantity of flour; and, one evening, "Now," says Weaver, "I'm going to have some nice biscuit for supper, so hold on, boys, I'll have 'em ready in a twinkling."

Weaver was a short, thick-set fellow, and wore a pair of oilcloth pantaloons, strikingly suggestive of his former avocations. Owing to their natural gummy and adhesive nature, their original colour had been overlaid and aggravated, something like a painter's palette, by numerous successive layers of every variety of hue, among which, however, dirt-colour was decidedly predominant. This process of accretion had been carried on with most perseverance and success on that part of his nether garments that would naturally stand in greatest need of such patching, and which, from constant manipulation, now exhibited a truly Parthian polish, almost dazzling to behold.

Having emptied a due proportion of flour and water into one of the large, shallow tin-pans used in mining, Weaver gave his hands, fresh from their day's work, a desperate slide over the part aforesaid, and, without more ado, plunged them half up to the elbows into the paste. A liberal supply of saleratus was added, and, in half an hour, he placed upon the smooth stone that served us for a table, two small loaves of a greenish-yellow complexion and about the consistency of a middling-boiled egg.

"There!" said he, triumphantly, as he drew a long knife from his boot, and, breathing upon it, gave it a preparatory wipe over his breeches, "that's what I call despatch. Now for some butter!"

The butter was brought in a plate, already bearing the indisputable marks of pork and beans; though a bowl would have been the more fitting receptacle, the heat of the sun having converted the contents of the keg into a state of perfect fluidity.

"Never mind," said Weaver, "I'll fix it to-morrow;" and with the word, five knives clashed together on the bottom of the plate, and returned as if they had been dipt in oil.

Weaver was as good as his word; he had said that he would fix the butter, and he did. Sometime the next day, the butter, which had partially cooled during the night, having again melted, he set the keg in the edge of the water; and, not long after, we witnessed the novel and pleasing spectacle of what seemed a river of oil or honey. The water had risen, as it did regularly once in twenty-four hours, and the whole of our butter issuing out of the keg, had floated tranquilly down the stream.

The next morning, when Weaver was preparing to renew his culinary operations, I, by some manoeuvre, called his attention to a man just performing his matin ablutions on the opposite side of the river, and cautiously suggested that it might be as well to follow his example. He received the hint, as if the idea had just dawned upon him for the first time; and, having bathed his hands and face, declared that, really, he didn't know before how much better a man felt after being washed; and he thought it would be a good plan to do it every morning, or at least as often as every Sunday.

I am sorry that I am unable to state whether this knight of the knife and the shell ever attained the summit of his modest ambition; but I am rather impressed with the belief that he never succeeded in throwing off his old habits, and may still be found at his former quarters in Devonshire street, busily and not ignobly employed in studying his favourite science of conchology.

On fastening our logs together by wooden bolts and ropes of bark, we found the raft thus constructed altogether inadequate to sustain the necessary weight consisting of four men, the armour weighing about one hundred pounds, and nearly double that quantity of shot; but by means of ropes attached to the outer corners, and made fast to the rocks, we made it sufficiently buoyant to answer for the first experiment; and our eager impatience would not admit of any longer delay.

As none of our company felt willing to play the part of diver, we hired for that purpose a man who had already been down in one of "the masheens" at home, and now gladly embraced the opportunity of making somewhat higher wages than he had been in the habit of receiving. It was not a little curious and amusing to watch the operations of his toilet while preparing for the descent,—seldom is the proudest belle while being drest for a ball waited upon by more zealous and obsequious attendants; he seemed indeed like some turtle fed alderman now disabled by gout or other infirmity, and dependent upon the services of others.

Our nabob divested of all but shirt and pantaloons, seated himself on a stone, while two of his ready servitors pulled on his boots and breeches all in one—a suit of genteel black very wide at the hips and having a copper ring round the waist. We next arrayed his highmightiness in a close jacket of the same fashion, with a second ring at the bottom, and at the top a monstrous copper basin somewhat larger than a water bucket, "within which his head seemed to have shrunk away like a dried filbert in its shell." He looked out through two glass eyes having that lidless stare peculiar to the sculpen, and there was a still larger window opposite his mouth, opening by a screw in order to give him air while dressing.

The jacket and trowsers were screwed firmly together by means of the two copper rings—the bags of shot and sand tied over his shoulders and round his waist—the viser closed, and the air-pumps at the same moment put in motion. A long hose of india rubber connected the pumps with the top of his helmet, and as the unwieldly figure rose to its feet, and waddled forward to the edge of the raft, while the inrushing air puffed out his flabby skin to its full extent, he looked like an infant elephant on its hind legs, or some of the monstrous idols of heathendom, among which, however, he would certainly have carried off the palm for ugliness. He was not like most other amphibious animals, awkward and clumsy on land, but all alert in the water; his awkwardness never deserted him, and the ridiculous splash, it could hardly be called a plunge, with which he settled into what seemed a more congenial element, reminded me of nothing so much as Ma'am Bridges sitting unexpectedly down in her own wash-tub.

After he had been gone some ten minutes, and no signal twitch had been given at the cord provided for that purpose, we began to look at each other with a mysterious sort of dread, and debate the expediency of pulling him up. My own position at the pumps prevented me from taking any more active part, but I did my best to induce my companions to haul him in without any further delay, and they at length yielded to my expostulations. But, to our infinite consternation, we now found all our strength unable to move him from the bottom; and crying out, all at once, to a party of miners on the opposite bank, two of them came in a canoe to our assistance, and by pulling directly over the spot where the diver lay, succeeded in bringing him to the surface.

We drew him hastily to the shore, and opening the visor saw, within the depths of the helmet, a countenance paler than that of Ivanhoe when he fainted in the very presence of the Queen of Love and Beauty, at the gentle and famous passage of arms at Ashby de la Zouche. Long after his armour had been removed, he still lay apparently lifeless,—and it was an hour before he could give us any account of his misfortune. He then told us that walking along the bottom he had suddenly stepped into a hole behind a rock, and was having the best time he ever had in his life, when all at once he fell asleep.

He was not in the least disturbed by the imminent danger he had escaped so narrowly, and declared his readiness to make a second trial, if a place could be found free from rocks, and where the water was sufficiently clear for us to see him from the surface.

As no such place was to be found in that vicinity, all our previous labour went for nothing; we abandoned our raft, and moved several miles further up the river to a spot not far below Big Bar, and said in the high flown language of the miners to contain a cart load of gold.

The sand bags proving quite unfit for the purpose, Allen again set off in search of an additional supply of shot; and the rest of us set to work with redoubled energy, to construct a second and larger raft, with such improvements as our hard-won experience suggested.

In the meantime I went down the river to Ford's Bar to purchase a stock of provisions, and a number of articles required in our delicate operations. Having bought a hundred weight of flour—a small quantity of pork, sugar and coffee—and a large coil of rope at Dutch Tom's, I hired him and a mule to carry them to our camp.

As it was utterly impossible for a mule to make his way on the shore, we determined to ascend the mountain and keep along the summit as far as was convenient, and then get down the best way we could. The hill in question resembled nothing so much as a monstrous hyena, up whose tail we now slowly climbed, till we reached its spinous bristly back bone, where the travelling was comparatively smooth. Having at length arrived as near as I could judge, at the proper point, we began to descend; but had gone only a few rods when the mule came to a full halt, and Dutch Tom declared that it was altogether out of the question for man or beast to go any further; he had been over all the worst places within fifty miles, but this was a little too much even for him.

I coaxed, I threatened, I expostulated in vain. I offered to give him ten dollars more than the price we had promised, if he remained faithful to his agreement, and assured him, on the other hand, he would never receive a dollar if he deserted me in such a situation—but he swore that if the flour were turned into gold it would be no temptation, and urged me not to make the venture. I told him, however, that I could be as obstinate as any Dutchman of them all; and finding me as good as my word, he unloaded his mule and set out on his return with that unpleasant coolness and deliberation for which his countrymen are so remarkable, and which I found it mere affectation to attempt to equal.

In fact I was not cool at all, and could have thrashed the perfidious Nederlander with hearty good will, but as he was now beyond my reach, I vented my rage with far greater ease and safety against the inoffensive sack of flour, pleasing myself all the while with the thought that I was demolishing a broad-skirted Dutchman at every kick. When I was tired of this exercise, I sat down again to rest and think what I had best do next.

It was now nearly sundown—the valley below lay in deep shadow which was slowly creeping with a broken irregular front, and with the stealthy tread of an Indian army up the mountain. Tired and exhausted as I was by our long march under a burning sun I had yet no time to rest; and no sooner had the sound of hoofs died away in the distance than I sprang to my feet and commenced my descent.

Having first marked the place as carefully as I could, I made a bundle of some of the more indispensable articles, weighing in all some eighty pounds, and lashed it firmly to my back in order to leave my hands at perfect liberty. The face of the mountain consisted, like that at Ford's Bar, of broken slate that continually, as it was started by the feet, slid away in little streams awaking a strange curiosity to see how far they would go. A scattered growth of shrubs and vines covered the ground, but the first were too brittle to be of much service, and the thorns that guarded the latter only tore my clothes and scratched my hands and face without in the least retarding my downward course. Crouching down on my feet I sometimes slid straightforward a distance of several rods—at others, I was obliged to advance more slowly in a diagonal direction, when I could not help wishing that my legs, like those of the animal called the brocke, were of unequal length, that they might correspond better to the sloping surface.

After proceeding thus painfully about an hour I came almost before I was aware upon a perpendicular precipice from one to two hundred feet in height, which seemed effectually to bar all further progress in that direction. I could now hear however the roar of the river with great distinctness, and the sound inspiring me with fresh energy, I resolved to make the attempt. I accordingly took my pack from my shoulders, and having thrown it into what seemed a clump of bushes at the foot of the precipice, prepared myself to follow, though with somewhat greater deliberation.

In my cooler moments I should have shrunk at once from so perilous an undertaking; but I was now possessed with a sort of stupid, unreasoning courage that prevented me from seeing the full extent of the danger, and probably actually diminished it in the same proportion.

The first part of the way was by no means difficult; I discovered on closer inspection a narrow shelf descending steeply along the face of the precipice, affording barely room for my feet, so that in order to preserve my balance I was obliged to advance in a sidling direction with my face to the rock, and my fingers constantly thrust into the narrow seams that mapped its surface. The shelf terminated abruptly about fifty feet from the summit, and for a moment I saw no way of continuing my descent. Creeping slowly back the path I had just travelled, I came in a few steps to a sort of fissure in the rock about two feet in width and penetrating deeper than my eye could follow. By bracing my feet against the opposite sides of this hollow, I thought I would descend in the same manner in which a sweep works his way up and down a chimney.

It was a peculiarity of the state of mind I was then in that the moment any plan presented itself I hastened to put it in execution. In a few minutes I found myself far below the point at which I had started, the numerous hollows and projections in the sides of my chimney affording an excellent foothold; but now a new difficulty presented itself. The chasm had insensibly widened, till now, with my feet planted firmly against one side, and my hands braced against the other, I found it no easy matter to maintain my position. To ascend seemed an effort wholly beyond my strength, yet another step downward might plunge me headlong on to the rocks below. The little light that found its way into the mouth of the chasm did not enable me to see the bottom, but I naturally concluded that the depth was considerable.

Cautiously sliding my hands a little lower, and then stretching out one foot as far as possible, I found to my utter consternation, that the wall retired so rapidly at this point that it was entirely beyond my reach. My limbs which had been before as rigid as iron, now seemed weaker than a child's, but it was only for a moment. The next my hope revived, and I resolved, desperate as it seemed, to make an attempt to return. But just then a stone detached by my foot fell into the chasm. I listened to hear it strike with the same sort of curiosity as if I had been in perfect safety; but to my great surprise no sound followed. Could it be that the hollow was so deep, or had it,—and I trembled at the thought,—fallen so short a distance as to make no noise? It would be easy to determine the fact by another trial, but on making the effort I could not find a single stone that was loose. I succeeded however, by a violent effort, in getting my hand into my pocket; and taking out my knife dropped it carefully in the middle of the chasm and the same moment heard it strike just at my feet. A single step placed me on the level ground at the bottom, which had been all the while scarcely an inch beyond my reach. I groped about till I had found my knife; and following the slender ray of light that streamed from a short distance, soon felt the cool breath of the river on my burning brow.

Our camp, it fortunately happened, was not far off, where my sudden arrival astonished my companions almost as much as if I had fallen from the moon. I was too much exhausted, however, to satisfy their curiosity, and lost no time in stretching myself out on my bed of rocks with a far keener sense of rest and enjoyment than the bridal chamber of the St. Nicholas could ever bestow.

I dreamed all night of rolling down hill in a barrel stuck full of nails; and in the morning, when I came to feel my bruises and look at my torn and bleeding hands, I almost believed my dream to be real; hardly a spot in my body but was as black and blue as if I had been hunted by a legion of fairies through every forest in Christendom.

In less than a week our raft was completed; it was much larger than the other, with an opening at one end, over which we erected a stout triangle or tripod to assist in raising and lowering the diver. For more than a month we continued to struggle against a series of delays and vexatious such as must necessarily attend an undertaking of so great magnitude in a new country; but after all, the thing itself was the chief obstacle,—all others were finally surmounted, but we were apparently as far as ever from attaining our object. The diver was almost entirely helpless in his moving prison; he was unable to remain under water more than a few hours a day, and came out dripping with perspiration and trembling as if he had the ague.

More than once he was overtaken by the same fit or faintness that had so alarmed us before, and we were thus kept in a state of constant apprehension. He found it nearly impossible to use a pick or shovel under water, but contrived by means of a small scoop to fill an iron pot we lowered down to him; and though it contained little gold, this trifling achievement raised considerably the spirits of the more sanguine of our party.

I had for some time, however, ceased to feel any lively faith in our success, and, on consulting with my brothers, we all agreed that there was little hope of doing anything that season, and determined to sell our share without further delay. An opportunity soon offering, I disposed of our quarter of the armour for four hundred and ninety-five dollars, to be paid two days after at Coloma; and thus ended six weeks of the severest labour I ever encountered.