This so exasperated them that they acted as though they were going to kill me.  I offered to let them bind me as a prisoner, and take me before Alcalde Sinclair at Sutter’s Fort, and I promised that I would then tell all I knew about the money.  They would listen to nothing, however, and finally I told them where they would find the silver, and gave them the gold.  After I had done this they showed me a document from Alcalde Sinclair, by which they were to receive a certain proportion of all moneys and properties which they rescued.  Those men treated me with great unkindness.  Mr. Tucker was the only one who took my part or befriended me.  When they started over the mountains, each man carried two bales of goods.  They had silks, calicoes, and delaines from the Donners, and other articles of great value.  Each man would carry one bundle a little way, lay it down, and come back and get the other bundle.  In this way they passed over the snow three times.  I could not keep up with them, because I was so weak, but managed to come up to their camp every night.”

Upon receipt of this communication I wrote Mr. McGlashan from San Jose that I was nerved for the ordeal, but that he should not permit me to start on that momentous journey if his proposed arrangements were at all doubtful, and that he should telegraph me at once.

Alas! my note miscarried; and, believing that his proposal had not met my approval, Mr. and Mrs. McGlashan returned to Truckee a day earlier than expected.  Two weeks later he returned the envelope, its postmarks showing what had happened.

It was not easy to gain the consent of my husband to a meeting with Keseberg.  He dreaded its effect on me.  He feared the outcome of the interview.

However, on May 16, 1879, he and I, by invitation, joined Mr. and Mrs. McGlashan at the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento.  The former then announced that although Keseberg had agreed by letter to meet us there, he had that morning begged to be spared the mortification of coming to the city hotel, where some one might recognize him, and as of old, point the finger of scorn at him.  After some deliberation as to how I would accept the change, Mr. McGlashan had aceeded to the old man’s wish, that we drive to the neat little boarding house at Brighton next morning, where we could have the use of the parlor for a private interview.  In compliance with this arrangement we four were at the Brighton hotel at the appointed time.

Mr. McGlashan and my husband went in search of Keseberg, and after some delay returned, saying: 

“Keseberg cannot overcome his strong feeling against a meeting in a public house.  He has tidied up a vacant room in the brewery adjoining the house where he lives with his afflicted children.  It being Sunday, he knows that no one will be about to disturb us.  Will you go there?”

I could only reply, “I am ready.”

My husband, seeing my lips tremble and knowing the intensity of my suppressed emotion, hastened to assure me that he had talked with the man, and been impressed by his straightforward answers, and that I need have no dread of meeting or talking with him.