of the robbery and the circumstances attending it, received from him an order to see the soldier who was then under arrest.  By promises of not proceeding against him, for any share he might have had in the robbery, we induced him to confess the whole circumstances connected with it, and also to inform us of the route intended to be taken by El Capitan and the two others of the gang.  This, it seems, was along the great Spanish Trail to Santa Fe.

On rejoining our companions, we decided to continue here the remainder of the day, and to start off the next morning in pursuit.  We informed Colonel Mason of the circumstance, and he stated that he would have furnished us with a guard to accompany us, if he did not feel certain that the men would desert to the mines directly they got outside the town.

At four o’clock the next morning we commenced the journey, each of us taking a stock of provisions sufficient to last for a fortnight; although we hoped, and fully expected, that we should be back to Monterey several days before that time had expired.  It was purely a question of hard riding.  Andreas and his party had started, as far as we could learn, three days in advance of us, and no doubt knew the track better than the old trapper who had undertaken to accompany us as guide.  He had never penetrated further than the foot of the Sierra, so that if we were compelled to cross the mountains we should have to seek for some Indians to guide us on our course.  By pressing our horses hard we succeeded in crossing the hills of the coast range that night, and encamped some slight way down the descent, in as sheltered a spot as we could manage to select.  The night was quite frosty, but we made up a blazing fire, and, well wrapped up in our serapes, slept till morning, without feeling much inconvenience from the cold.  Next day we struck the river of the lakes, and found it thickly hemmed in with timber along its whole course.  We soon found a fording place, and encamped at night a few miles from the east bank.  The following morning we fell in with some civilized Indians, who informed us, in answer to our inquiries, that a party of three whites passed along the trail the evening before last, and that they would have encamped not far from this spot.

These Indians, Don Luis informed me, had all of them been attached to the Californian Missions; but, since the downfall of these establishments, they had moved across the coast range, and had located themselves in the neighbourhood of the Tule Lakes, subsisting chiefly on horseflesh.  To gratify their appetites, however, instead of giving chase to the number of wild horses—­here called mustangs—­that are scattered over the extensive prairies in the neighbourhood of the lakes, they adopt a much lazier method of supplying their larder.  This is, to make predatory excursions across the mountains, and to drive off a large herd of tame horses, belonging to some poor ranchero, at a time; these they slaughter, and subsist on as long as the flesh lasts, when they set out again on a similar expedition.  Sometimes they are pursued, and, if overtaken, butchered forthwith; but, in general, they manage to escape some little distance into the interior, where they are safe not to be followed.