cost.  I recall an occurrence that happened when the schooner was anchored in Carquinez Straits, opposite the soldiers’ camp on shore.  We were waiting for daylight and a fair wind; the schooner lay anchored at an ebb-tide, and about daylight Ord and I had gone ashore for something.  Just as we were pulling off from shore, we heard the loud shouts of the men, and saw them all running down toward the water.  Our attention thus drawn, we saw something swimming in the water, and pulled toward it, thinking it a coyote; but we soon recognized a large grizzly bear, swimming directly across the channel.  Not having any weapon, we hurriedly pulled for the schooner, calling out, as we neared it, “A bear! a bear!” It so happened that Major Miller was on deck, washing his face and hands.  He ran rapidly to the bow of the vessel, took the musket from the hands of the sentinel, and fired at the bear, as he passed but a short distance ahead of the schooner.  The bear rose, made a growl or howl, but continued his course.  As we scrambled up the port-aide to get our guns, the mate, with a crew, happened to have a boat on the starboard-aide, and, armed only with a hatchet, they pulled up alongside the bear, and the mate struck him in the head with the hatchet.  The bear turned, tried to get into the boat, but the mate struck his claws with repeated blows, and made him let go.  After several passes with him, the mate actually killed the bear, got a rope round him, and towed him alongside the schooner, where he was hoisted on deck.  The carcass weighed over six hundred pounds.  It was found that Major Miller’s shot had struck the bear in the lower jaw, and thus disabled him.  Had it not been for this, the bear would certainly have upset the boat and drowned all in it.  As it was, however, his meat served us a good turn in our trip up to Stockton.  At Stockton we disembarked our wagon, provisions, and instruments.  There I bought two fine mules at three hundred dollars each, and we hitched up and started for the Coaumnes River.  About twelve miles off was the Mokelumne, a wide, bold stream, with a canoe as a ferry-boat.  We took our wagon to pieces, and ferried it and its contents across, and then drove our mules into the water.  In crossing, one mule became entangled in the rope of the other, and for a time we thought he was a gone mule; but at last he revived and we hitched up.  The mules were both pack-animals; neither had ever before seen a wagon.  Young Seton also was about as green, and had never handled a mule.  We put on the harness, and began to hitch them in, when one of the mules turned his head, saw the wagon, and started.  We held on tight, but the beast did not stop until he had shivered the tongue-pole into a dozen fragments.  The fact was, that Seton had hitched the traces before he had put on the blind-bridle.  There was considerable swearing done, but that would not mend the pole.  There was no place nearer than Sutter’s Fort to repair damages, so we were put to our wits’