We now followed the road up the mountain to Georgetown.  Here was a small village on the summit of the ridge and it seemed to be in a prosperous mining section.  After some inquiry about a good place to work we concluded to go down a couple of miles northeast of town on Canon creek and go to work if vacant ground could be found.  There was a piece of creek bottom here that had not been much worked.  Georgia Flat above had been worked and paid well, and the Illinois and Oregon canons that emptied into the bottom here were rich, so we concluded to locate in the bottom.  Claims here in the flat were only fifteen feet square.  I located one and my notice told others that I would go to work on it as soon my partner came from Sacramento.  I sent my partner, Mr. Bennett a note telling him to come up.

While waiting for Mr. Bennett I took my pan and butcher knife and went into a dry gulch out of sight of the other campers and began work.  As the ground was mostly bare bed rock by scratching around I succeeded in getting three or four pans of dirt a day.  The few days I had to wait for Bennett I made eight dollars a day until my claim was worked out.

I then went to Georgetown to meet Bennett and family, and soon after my arrival they came well and safe.  All of them, even to the faithful camp dog, Cuff, were glad to see me.  Old Cuff followed me all around town, but when we got ready to start for camp the dog was gone and could not be found.  Some one had hidden him away knowing he could not be gotten any other way, for six ounces would not have bought him.  We had raised him in Wisconsin, made him a good deer dog, and with us he had crossed the dry and sandy deserts.  He had been a great protection to Bennett’s children on the plains, and company for us all.

We now located claims on the creek bottom.  The channel of the creek was claimed by Holman of Alabama and the Helms brothers of Missouri.  They had turned the stream into a ditch in order to work the bed of the stream, believing that their claims had all the gold in them.  Our claims joined theirs.

Mr. W.M.  Stockton, who left his family in Los Angeles, came with Mr. Bennett and went to work with us.  As everything here was very high we concluded to let Mr. Stockton take the team and go to Sacramento for provisions for our own use.  Flour and meat were each fifty cents a pound, potatoes twenty-five cents a pound and onions one dollar and twenty-five cents each.  Onions and potatoes eaten raw were considered very necessary to prevent and cure scurvy, which was quite a common complaint.  Whiskey, if not watered, cost one dollar a drink.

Our claims were about ten feet deep.  The bottom was wet and a pump needed, so we went to a whip saw-mill and got four narrow strips one by three and one by five and twelve feet long, paying for them by weight, the price being twelve cents a pound.  Out of these strips we made a good pump by fixing a valve at the end and nailing a piece of green rawhide on a pole, which answered for a plunger, and with the pump set at forty-five degrees it worked easily and well.  One man could easily keep the water out and we made fair wages.