ized, and the shares of stock presented to friends; and these gifts were in most cases the ruin of the recipients, for scarcely were the certificates printed before assessments were levied and after paying five or six, the holders would drop out and all their coin with them. Another new gold excitement broke out, this time in Washington Territory, (that part of it now in Idaho); and my restless and roving spirit was kindled anew. Although it was winter, and communication on the Columbia was not yet open, I started up to Portland and took the first chance after the breaking up of the ice. The steamers then plying the Columbia were exceedingly small, having accommodation for not over thirty passengers and a little freight; but the rush of people was so great that they carried from one hundred to one hundred and fifty passengers on every trip. The fare provided by the company at that time was the worst that could be placed before human beings. Hard bread and chunks of fat salt pork boiled, tea or coffee that might be taken for boiled willow leaves and roots, the same served up as we could catch it and only twice a day. The passengers were cramped up on the tops of boxes and bales, and not a foot of space to move about in. Then when we came to any rapids all hands got off and went ashore to take hold of a long hawser and help to tow or pull the boat around some point, while she steamed for all she was worth. After going up the river for two days and changing boats at the Cascades for the Upper Columbia, we were coolly told by the steward that we could not have any supper that evening - there was no chance to cook; but we could have some hard bread and water. The consequence was a mutiny right there. All were hungry and desperate. A consultation was held at which five men were appointed to wait on the captain and find out what was to be done. It so happened that I was one of the number. We went up to the pilot house to find him, and were told he was not there. the pilot added that if we came up there again he would blow our heads off. This word was soon communicated to all parts of the boat. Then a committee of the whole was held and we were deputed to go back and say that unless our demands were at once complied with we would take the boat, and would not be responsible for consequences. I was made spokesman this time. When the pilot saw me, he warned me off with a threatening gesture; but I knew the crowd had covered him with their revolvers and delivered my message. It had the desired effect. The cooks set to work and kept at it till midnight. Better yet, the crowd, finding the officers' mess table all set in their room with not only the substantials but also the luxuries of life, insisted that their committee should walk in and take possession. We were not slow in doing so, leaving the captain and all his assistants to go without their supper until the rest had been attended to. It is needless to say that thereafter we got our three meals a day; and although matters went on rather sullenly, we got to our destination at the junction of Snake and Clearwater Rivers without further trouble. Our party soon moved ahead. On the Camas Prairie we found thousands of head of cattle, or their skeletons, standing bolt upright, frozen stiff in the snow, where they had perished. We crossed the Blue Mountain through snow ten to twelve feet deep on a level. We had to pack traps and provisions on our shoulders, as no animals could travel over the trails. We met parties of Indians on the way none of whom were friendly, although occasionally some of them would venture to come and talk with us either to trade or barter for a horse. On one occasion we came to a large stream whose only crossing consisted of a large tree, felled across the stream - evidently by some party that had preceded us. Here we were opposed by a large band of Indians ho demanded toll for the crossing. We efused and put ourselves on the defensive. The Indians attacked us, and as they had he advantage of higher ground on the oppoite bank, we were kept at bay for some ime; but our arms were better, and we inally drove them away and passed onlthough they made it hot for those who came after us. We reached Florence and found it in embryo-only three or four shake houses, saloons at that, into which every one crowded for shelter. Shakes were worth about ten cents each, or one hundred dolars a thousand; but in a week's time there were fifty houses up, and town lots booming. This was a lively place, filled with the lowest scum of the coast, the rendezvous of highwaymen and murderers; not a night but what some one was shot, sometimes five or six. There was a boy here only sixteen years old, whose father was a large merchant in Sacramento; and this youngster, although he had a good home and position, was always naturally bad. While here The headed a band of highwaymen who did not hesitate to murder in order to get their booty. Some of the gang were taken at one time and hanged on a tree at Camas Prairie; but the boy always managed to escape. He finally landed in San Quentin a few years later, for an attempted murder in Contra Costa County. The gulches about Florence City were the richest I ever saw. Many a man made his ten pounds of gold a day continuously for weeks. It was here that I met among others George L. Thomas, a prominent politician in California for years past, who was first clerk of the City Hall commission. He is yet in the prime of life and as active as twenty years ago. I knew an instance of one man who went up with us, and had not a dollar when he got there, who went to work for another man at five dollars a day for a week; the owner of the claim was then taken sick, and proposed to this man (whose name was J. B. Harmon, of Sweetland, Nevada County) to buy half of the claim for three thousand dollars. Harmon said, "How can I pay you for it?" The owner, a Mr. White, replied, "If you don't make it in thirty days, I'll give you all you make." Harmon agreed, worked on, and at the expiration of a month had paid for his half claim and had ten thousand dollars over. Two months thereafter they departed with more gold than the two could carry; and when they got to San Francisco I helped them put sixty thousand dollars into the mint for coinage. I have seen a level pan of gold cleaned up every night out of one claim in Baboon Gulch, by only two men's labor. I have had very little to say in this record of the prominent men of the day, for their lives are already recorded in all histories of the State. I may perhaps, however, pause here to recall our principal railroad magnates, as I remember them in the early fifties. During these years, Charles R. Crocker kept a dry goods store in Sacramento, and lived very plainly and unpretentiously; while I can remember when Senator Stanford was keeping a trading post or small store about the vicinity of White Rock in El Dorado County, and his goods combined might almost have been put in a pack. I think his brother also was with him at that time. Lit-, tle did any one then dream that the time would come when he would be the richest man on the 'coast, the head of a railroad that would span the Rockies and climb the steeps of the Sierras, and better than all, bear a name that must endure when cities and industrial works have crumbled to dust, for his many and bounteous unostentatious charities, and his crowning work, the founding of a college for the youth of the State with millions of dollars to insure its success, and all this during his own lifetime. Many were the incidents and occurrences that took place there; but my object is only to give an idea of the incessant changes and nomadic habits of the life of a pioneer, in a fascinating chase after gold. The constant whirl of excitement can be realized only by those who have tried it. Even though one pursues a phantom, and experiences many a failure and bitter disappointment, yet the charm never fails, the hope never gives out. I have thus given a very brief and hurried description of the events that happened in the life of a single man in the early flush times of California, the period of its settlement. They are only a few out of many that fill my memory.. Year by year, month by month, week by week, those who know what it was to pass through that wonderful decade — many of whom could relate incidents far more startling than any I have told — are dropping away, and with them the contribution they might have made to history. XLIV. CHATA AND CHINITA. A NOVEL OF MEXICAN LIFE. A LEAGUE or less from the village of Las Parras there stood and perhaps still stands a man, who riding through the drizzling rain, caught a glimpse of the unusual light through the unguarded doorway, and reining his horse gazed curiously in. At first the place seemed to him full of women and jaded beasts; then he saw there were but four of each, and that one of the human creatures was a man,- a priest. The women -good heavens, they were the Señorita Doña Isabel Garcia, and the girl whom he had once seen under circumstances as extraordinary, she whom he, knew as the daughter of Ramirez, and the fosterchild of Don Rafael. Of the other woman he scarcely thought, yet he instinctively guessed she was Doña Carmen. a small chapel, built no one knows in fulfillment of what pious vow at the entrance to a mountain pass of the roughest and most dangerous sort alike from the forces of nature and humanity. Likely enough some rich hidalgo, escaping from brigands, raised here the humble pile and vowed that the lamp should ever burn before the Virgin and her blessed Child. But through the long years of war, as a pious ranchera had said in holy horror, el Niño santo had remained in darkness. But some time after midnight one rainy night, a sudden flash of flame lighted up not only the dingy altar, but the whole of the small and mouldy interior, and a scene was revealed which a passing monk might have viewed with reverence, so nearly must it have copied one that might have been common enough when Joseph and Mary journeyed to Jerusalem, eighteen hundred years and more ago. This thought indeed entered the mind of visited, yet all in vain. Ashley Ward had He looked round in bewilderment. Only that day some definite account of what had occurred at Tres Hermanos had reached him, told by a man who had been with the Administrador and his mother in their vain endeavors to trace the girl who had been so boldly spirited away. The search had been long delayed because of the illness of Doña Feliz; but once begun, had been prosecuted with untiring zeal. Not a village, scarce a hut throughout that region had been un heard the tale with deepest sympathy. inconceivable obtuseness! that it had not once occurred to him or to Gonzales that the girl of whom they had heard as sojourning with Doña Carmen, and whom he had believed to be Chinita, might prove to be her vanished playmate simply because the remembrance of the guest of Doña Carmen had slipped from their minds when their knowledge of the movements of Chinita made her no longer an object of interest to them, simply because the means adopted by Ramirez for the security of Chata, could never have suggested themselves to minds less daring, less original than his own. Ashley Ward turned from the doorway dazed. The presence of these younger personages in such a place, at such a time, seemed unreal, bewildering, omin ous. Upon the heavy sand his horse had made. so little noise that it had not roused the miserable travelers as they cowered wet and shivering around the sputtering fire, upon which the priest, with unhesitating hands, threw some dry portion of a wooden railing and the broad cover of a sacred book of music — vain sacrifice! for being of parchment, it but curled and blackened, yet would not burn, any more than would the bare stone floor upon which the welcome embers lay. A few paces back, Ward encountered the carriage he had accompanied hither. With bowed heads, endeavoring thus to shelter. their faces from the mist, the General Gonzales and the servant Pedro rode, one on either side of the heavy traveling carriage. Just as Ward appeared they caught sight of the light. The coachman and his soto, half dead as they were from want of sleep, saw it too, and all the horses were stopped as though transfixed. The men began to mumble prayers, crossing themselves with unction. Gonzales following his habit of caution as well as the notion of Ward, rode softly forward to reconnoitre. Before the occupants of the carriage had time to question the meaning of the stoppage, he had returned. His face was white with excitement as he dismounted, and opened the door of the vehicle. "Señorita," he said in a voice that shook from suppressed emotion, "a wonderful thing has happened!" Herlinda leaned eagerly forward. She caught the gleam of the light, and the grim outline of the chapel against the leaden sky. 'Is my child Leon, my uncle - here?" she gasped. He spoke the two last words with evident difficulty and repugnance. Herlinda did not notice that. She scarce had heard more than the words, "Your mother - your sister." In trembling haste she descended from the carriage. Instinctively she clasped the arm of Ashley Ward to support her through the inequalities of the roadway; and thus, followed by Gonzales and Pedro, who had dismounted, she sped with surprising fleetness to the open door of the chapel. At the sound of approaching footsteps, those within sprang to their feet in terror. Even the brutes bustled together within the very rail of the altar, leaving free the space between the fire and the low arch beneath which the intruders stood. The women stood panting, their hands clasped upon their hearts, their lips parted, their eyes staring wildly. Doña Isabel was foremost. She first saw the vision of Herlinda supported by the arm of the American. sank upon her knees; her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. She "Mother," said a voice, "I am no ghost. The convents have been opened. I am free, She advanced into the chapel with a gesture so earnest, so impassioned, that it seemed that of concentrated power and anguish combined. Doña Isabel bowed her head upon her hand. Under the red light of the fire her form seemed to shrink and wither. "Have mercy! O Herlinda, have mercy!" she moaned. "She is not here. I am seeking her, O with what grief, what anguish ! Ah, my God, it is true, all, all that you can say to me !" She raised her eyes and they fell upon Gonzales. "I thought to save your honor and mine. - That there still might be love and joy for you, I gave the child to Feliz, to do with as she would. I did not think - I could not think "Cruel, cruel mother!" cried Herlinda, "and false Feliz! Oh! what reproaches will be bitter enough, sharp enough to heap upon her! She promised me she would love my child, care for it, protect it - yes, even from you, unnatural mother that you were ! Yet together you have degraded - perhaps brought about the ruin of my child! I have been shut in from all the world: and yet I am not the weak girl I was. No, the heart and brain of a woman grow, even in utter darkness. You had no right to thrust my child away. No, she was mine come disgrace, come scorn, what would, she was mine. You tore her from me - give her back to me. وو While this extraordinary scene took place, Chata, with indescribable emotion, recognized the pale, impulsive face of the nun of El Toro - as pale still, as worn, yet so strangely young, and lighted by the intense and resolute spirit of a wronged and noble 'Yes, give me back my child," reiterated Herlinda. "Ah, mother, I read your heart, I know now better than I did then your motives for utterly ignoring, utterly denying my connection with the American. Your brother killed him it was to shelter him, Leon Vallé, as much as to hide what you believed my shame, that you tore my baby from me. There should be neither wonder nor question. Oh! a sister's love, a sister's sacrifice is beautiful, but where in all the world before has it been stronger, more prescient, than that of the mother for her child?" Doña Isabel raised her hands above her head as though to ward off some crushing blow. Carmen rushed forward and caught her sister's hand. "Herlinda," she cried, say no more. I am your sister — I am Carmen! Oh! I have always known there was a mystery — yet I have loved you, believed you true, believed you pure. You were almost a childyou knew not the evil!" I was not a child! returned Herlinda proudly yet she clasped her sister with a grateful joy. "For all my trusting love I would not have stooped to sin. I was married. Yes," she added defiantly, "though all the world deny it, I was married. God grant that I may one day stand before my husband's murderer- oh! with that word I will overwhelm him. What? he, the ravisher, the assassin, think to avenge my honor!" swering voices. Her form dilated as she spoke. Through the dim chapel her voice pealed with a ring. of purity and truth, more clear than the tone of silver bells. There was a clamor of anEven the priest started forward but Chata caught his flowing sotana and whispered him in broken accents : "Oh! por misericordia de Dios, hide Let her not see me! Oh! this is too terrible, too terrible!" She shook with dread. "Madre Sanctisima, it will kill me if her eyes fall upon me! I am the daughter of the man she seeks. O Virgin del amparo, pity me!" me. The burly person of the priest supported and sheltered the stricken and trembling girl. "Courage, courage," he whispered. |