The big bony American, who treated Lacosse and the trapper in such a peremptory manner, and who seemed to be the terror of these diggings, was pointed out to me.  I learnt, however, that he had accumulated a very large amount of gold, over sixteen thousand dollars’ worth, it was said; and his suspicions that parties were lying in wait to plunder him of it was the cause of his acting as he had done.  He thought they only came to his shanty with an excuse, for the purpose of observing its weak points, and that no doubt they had a scheme in their heads for robbing him, either at night time, or while he was absent digging and washing during the day.  The men he had shot, it seems, were common thieves—­one, a deserter from the garrison at Monterey, and the other belonging to a similar band of robbers to that by which our party had been attacked, and our gold carried off.

I reached Sutter’s Fort the next day, and found it like the most crowded localities of some of our great cities, with the exception that the bulk of the people we met with belonged to a totally different race.  I saw Captain Sutter for a few moments, when he informed me that Mr. Bradley and his party had left a couple of days ago; and that a gentleman, accompanied by a man named Joe White, who, as the Captain said, used to trap for him before the gold fever came up, had been making inquiries at the Fort respecting Mr. Bradley that very day.  I at once saw that this could be no other than Lacosse, and set off to see if I could meet with him.  After some search, I was fortunate enough to discover him at the newly opened hotel here, where he had intended stopping for the night.  I remained with him and shared his room—­a little box not more than ten feet by twelve, or thereabouts; but we considered ourselves fortunate in having obtained even that, the place being tremendously crowded.

I heard from Lacosse that Captain Sutter had informed him that the leader of the band of desperadoes who had plundered us had been seen down at the Fort with some of his companions not more than ten days ago.  He was quite sure he was right in the man; for Tomas Maria, who had been shot, belonged to his gang, and was, in fact, his chief lieutenant.  The name of El Capitan was Andreas Armjo; and Captain Sutter said he recommended Bradley to make his way to San Francisco, where, in all probability, he would meet with him, as when he left the Fort he had taken the road towards the coast.

The next day we started off towards San Francisco, and, from inquiries made on the road, found that we were on the correct track—­Bradley, Don Luis, McPhail, and Jose, having passed through a day or two previous.  We arrived at the end of our journey without meeting with any adventures worth noting, and at once made our way to Sweeting’s hotel, glad to find it one of the few houses in this town that were not shut up.  Here we met with our friends, who had been there now nearly two days, and were then on the point of starting off in pursuit