I am so sorry for you.  It will spoil your pleasure, and then I think of that load of debt which you hoped to lighten, yet I should have felt ashamed of you if you had failed to say a word in behalf of that wretched woman.  I am sick of one-sided justice; for the same crime, men glorified and women gibbeted.  If your words for Mrs. Fair have made your trip a failure, so let it be—­it is no disgrace to you.  It is scandalous the way the papers talk of you, but stick to what you feel to be right and let the world wag.

On July 22, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton started for the Yosemite Valley, a harder trip in those days even than now.  It is best described in her own words: 

Mrs. Stanton, writing to The Revolution, and S.B.A., scribbling home, are thirty miles out of the wonderful valley of the Yosemite....  We shall have compassed the Calaveras Big Trees and the Yosemite Valley in twelve days out from Stockton, where we expect to arrive August 2.  Mrs. Stanton is to speak there Thursday night and I at San Jose, where I shall learn whether the press has forgiven me.  We both lecture the rest of the week, and Sunday get into San Francisco, speak at different points the 7th and 8th, and on the 9th go to the Geysers and stay two nights; then out again and on with meetings almost every night till the end of the month.  We shall visit lakes Donner and Tahoe and some other points of interest as they come in our reach.  Mr. Hutchings would not take a penny for our three days’ sojourn in the valley, horses and all, so our trip is much less expensive than we had anticipated.

With our private carriage we drove three miles nearer the top of the mountain than the stage passengers go.  Mrs. Stanton and I each had a pair of linen bloomers which we donned last Thursday morning at Crane’s Flats, and we arrived at the brow of the mountain at 9 o’clock.  Our horses were fitted out with men’s saddles, and Mrs. Stanton, perfectly confident that she would have no trouble, while I was all doubts as to my success, insisted that I should put my foot over the saddle first, which I did by a terrible effort.  Then came her turn, but she was so fat and her pony so broad that her leg wouldn’t go over into the stirrup nor around the horn of a sidesaddle, so after trying several different saddles she commenced the walk down hill with her guide leading her horse, and commanded me to ride on with the other.  By this time the sun was pouring down and my horse was slowly fastening one foot after another in the rocks and earth and thus carefully easing me down the steeps, while my guide baited me on by saying, “You are doing nicely, that is the worst place on the trail,” when the fact was it hardly began to match what was coming.

At half-past two we reached Hutchings’, and a more used-up mortal than I could not well exist, save poor Mrs. Stanton, four hours behind in the broiling sun, fairly sliding down the mountain.