About four o’clock one afternoon we went aboard the Sacramento steamer, Antelope, paying our passage with half an ounce apiece, and were soon on our way past the islands and up the bay.  When we were beyond Benicia, where the river banks were close, McCloud sat watching the shore, and remarked that the boat ran like a greyhound, and it seemed to him, beat the old ocean steamer pretty bad.

He seemed to be nearly well again, and complimented me as the best doctor he ever saw.  Since he had been sick I had paid him all the attention I could, and he gave me all the praise I deserved, now that he was getting to feel himself again.

At Sacramento we changed to another boat bound for Marysville, which place we reached without special incident.  Here we invested in a four-ounce donkey, that is, we paid four ounces of gold for him, just an ounce apiece for four of us—­W.L.  Manley, Robert McCloud, Lyman Ross and John Briggs.  We piled our blankets in a pack upon the gentle, four-ounce donkey, and added a little tea and coffee, dried beef and bread, then started for the Yuba River, ourselves on foot.  We crossed the river at Park’s Bar, then went up the ridge by way of Nigger Tent, came down to the river again at Goodyear Bar, then up the stream to Downieville.  This town was named after John Downie, a worthless drunkard.  I remember that he once reformed, but again back-slid and died a drunkard’s death.

We found this a lively mining town about sixty miles above Marysville, on the north fork of the Yuba River, and only reached by a pack trail, but everything was flush here, even four aces.  The location was a veritable Hole-in-the-Ground, for the mountains around were very high, and some of them wore their caps of snow all summer, particularly those on the east.  The gold dust we found here was coarser than it was where I worked before, down south on the Merced River.  Before I came to California I always supposed that gold dust was really dust, and about as fine as flour.

We went up the North Fork about a mile or two above town and camped on Wisconsin Flat to begin our mining operations.  Our luck was poor at first, and all except myself were out of money, and more or less in debt to me.  We made expenses, however, and a little more, and as soon as Mr. Ross got his small debt paid he said he was discouraged mining, and with blankets on his shoulders started up the trail towards Galloway’s ranch, on the summit south of town.  Mr. Ross said the work was too hard for him, for he was not strong enough to handle pick and shovel, and he believed he could go down to Sacramento and make more by his wits than he could here.  I went with him to town and saw him start off with a fair load on his back, and watched him as he toiled up the steep mountain trail for about two miles, when he went out of sight.