went on to the Williams, or Chino ranch.  Col.  Williams was glad to see us, and said we could have everything we wanted.  We wanted to get wheat, for we had lived so long on meat that we craved such food.  He told us about the journey before us and where we would find places to camp.  Here we found one of the Gruwells.  We camped here a week, meeting many emigrants who came by way of Santa Fe.

We went on from here to San Gabriel where we staid six weeks to rest and recuperate the cattle.  In the good grass we found here they all became about as fat as ever in a little while.  Here the party all broke up and no sort of an organization was kept up beyond here.  Some went to Los Angeles, some went on north, trading off their cattle for horses, and some went directly to the coast.  We went to the Mission of San Fernando where we got some oranges which were very good for us.  There is a long, tedious hill there to get over.  We made up ten wagons.  By the time we reached the San Francisquito Ranch I had lost my cattle.  I went down to this ranch and there met Mr. and Mrs. Arcane getting ready to go to San Pedro.  We came north by way of Tejon pass and the Kern River, not far from quite a large lake, and reached the mines at last.  I remember we killed a very fat bear and tried out the grease, and with this grease and some flour and dried apples Mrs. Erkson made some pretty good pies which the miners were glad to get at a dollar and even two dollars apiece.”

Mr. Erkson followed mining for about a year and then went into other business until he came to Santa Clara Valley and began farming near Alviso.  He has been a highly respected citizen and progressive man, He died in San Jose in the spring of 1893.

* * * * *

THE EXPERIENCE OF EDWARD COKER.

Edward Coker was one of a party of twenty-one men who left their wagons, being impatient of the slow progress made by the ox train, and organized a pack train in which they were themselves the burden carriers.  They discarded everything not absolutely necessary to sustain life, packed all their provisions into knapsacks, bravely shouldered them and started off on foot from the desert to reach California by the shortest way.

Among those whom Mr. Coker can recollect are Capt.  Nat.  Ward, Jim Woods, Jim Martin of Missouri, John D. Martin of Texas, “Old Francis,” a French Canadian, Fred Carr, Negro “Joe” and some others from Coffeeville, Miss., with others from other states.

Mr. Coker related his experience to the Author somewhat as follows:—­

“One other of the party was a colored man who joined us at the camp when we left the families, he being the only remaining member of a small party who had followed our wagon tracks after we had tried to proceed south.  This party was made up of a Mr. Culverwell who had formerly been a writer in a Government office at Washington, D.C., a man named Fish claiming to be a relative of Hamilton Fish of New York, and another man whose name I never knew.  He, poor fellow, arrived at our camp in a starving condition and died before our departure.  The other two unfortunates ones died on the desert, and the colored man reported that he simply covered their remains with their blankets.