September 5th.—­This morning, the party bound for the coast started off as agreed on.  We rose before daybreak, breakfasted, and got the horses in readiness just as the sun showed over the mountain.  At my suggestion, Malcolm had the strongest horse we possessed allotted to him, as it had been arranged that he should carry the bulk of the gold, and that Don Luis and Bradley, who were to take as much as they could carry in their saddle-bags, were to form the guard.  This plan was adopted in preference to having a led horse, which it was thought would greatly impede their progress, and prevent the party from reaching the settlements on the Sacramento that night.  Bradley and Don Luis each took with them eighteen pounds weight of gold; Malcolm, who was unencumbered by anything, and merely carried a brace of pistols in his belt, took very nearly seventy pounds.  To relieve Malcolm’s horse as much as possible, three of us, who were to act as an escort to within a few miles of the Sacramento Valley, were each to carry fifteen pounds weight of the gold so far as we went.  This escort was composed of Story, Jose, and myself.

We started off soon after sun rise, amidst the faint cheers of our invalided companions, and, as it was necessary for the escorting party to return to the camp that night, it was agreed that we were to retrace our steps at noon or thereabouts.  The commencement of our ride was through an open country, broken up by boulders of granite and clumps of dark grey sage trees, when, after ascending some low rocky hills, their summits crowned with a dense forest of gigantic pines, we entered a grassy valley, lined with groups of noble cedars, whose spreading branches offered a most inviting shade.  Every now and then, we had to make our way down the sides of huge chasms which intercepted our progress, and then to toil slowly up the difficult ascent.

At noon we halted and took shelter from the sun in a little dell with a gushing spring bubbling up in the midst, and a patch of willows fringing the banks of the running stream.  We scampered our horses down it, dismounted, and, turning them loose to graze, seated ourselves at the base of a huge rock of granite.  Our wallet of provisions was opened, and we soon made a hearty meal.  Just as we had finished, some loose earth and a few small stones came tumbling down from above, knocking every now and then against the projecting ledges of rock in their descent.  We immediately started up, thinking it might be some grizzly old bear anxious to make a meal of us, and Bradley and Malcolm scrambled up above to get a shot at him.  But he had been too quick for them, for just as they reached the top, they heard the branches of the trees crackling in a tuft of underwood opposite, which lay between us and a deep water-course we had just crossed.  As a fatiguing journey was before them, they did not think it worth while to give chase to the brute, and were on the point of descending